A comparison of methodologies for avoided emissions quantification

There has been a rapid increase in the number of companies reporting on the avoided emissions caused by their products and services, as well as a rapid increase in the number of published methodologies for how to quantify avoided emissions. However, there are concerns over the quality and comparability of the different methodologies and the results that they produce. This is a concern for both critics of avoided emissions reporting, who see considerable scope for greenwashing, and advocates for avoided emissions reporting, who are interested in developing and improving current practice. This study explores this problem, using content analysis to identify fourteen methodological components within five key published guidance documents. It then assesses the specificity with which these components are defined and the degree to which the guidance is consistent across the documents. Existing academic research has predominantly focused on the application of individual methodologies and the key novel contribution of the present study is to provide a comparative analysis across multiple guidance documents. The findings reveal a landscape characterised by methodological fragmentation and limited definitional clarity. Of the fourteen components, only two were present in all methodology documents. Guidance lacked specificity for at least half of the components included in each of the five documents analysed and consistent guidance across methodology documents was only observed for half of the components. The only area of relative alignment is on the use of a life cycle approach, however, even here there is divergence on whether to adopt an attributional or consequential life cycle perspective. Four recommendations are made with regard to the need for caution in using avoided emissions disclosures, how disclosures could be improved, and a call for standard development in order to limit the scope for greenwashing and improve comparability. A further four recommendations for further academic investigation to support this standardisation process and the robust application of avoided emissions accounting are made. • Methodologies for calculating corporate avoided emissions shown high variability. • There is a lack of consistency in the components included. • Poor definition of components of the calculation is common. • Variability exists in the guidance given to practitioners across documents. • The current set of protocols are unlikely to support comparable disclosures.