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On February 23, 2024, ISO (along with the International Accreditation Federation (IAF)) published short amendments to all standards aligned with its Harmonized Structure. In the form of new requirement language and one additional note, ISO has now adapted climate change concerns as considerations for a wide range of popular certifications.

As part of the fight against the effects of climate change, a global effort has been kickstarted to reduce the use and production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) due to their high global warming potential (GWP). For their part in this HFC phasedown, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking organizations to report their HFC allowance, and the deadline to do so is May 31, 2024.

Back on March 21, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules that would enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures provided by public companies—two years and unquantified lobby and legal dollars later, the final SEC Climate Disclosure Rules were announced today.

More and more, organizations are turning a keener eye toward ESG initiatives. Though the Social Governance pillars are no less important, it’s the Environmental cornerstone of ESG that is commanding more scrutiny—more specifically, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

With the escalation of climate and various environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related risks, organizations are now actively setting bold sustainability objectives, and in recognition of the related concerns in their supply chains over which they lack control, companies are also asking for cooperation from their vendors in addressing their emissions to further minimize their environmental impact.

Unlike Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions—which are the direct and purchased energy emissions of a corporation, respectively—Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions generated from activities of assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization.

A new landmark in corporate climate change legislation, California Senate Bill (SB) 253, the Climate Corporate Accountability Act, has just been passed in the California Senate, and—now that it's been signed into law by the governor—it will mandate that the applicable companies report their direct greenhouse gas emissions as well as those generated by their utilities.