Join more than 50 organisations in advancing carbon accounting around the world

With the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) just over a couple of months away, I’d like to encourage more Australian and New Zealand companies to join Microsoft in supporting an initiative called the Carbon Call.

The Carbon Call was established in February this year to improve the reliability and interoperability of carbon accounting systems for organisations globally. Hosted by the ClimateWorks Foundation, the initiative mobilises collective action, investment and resources from scientific, corporate, philanthropic, and non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations to:

• expand transparent, comprehensive and regular reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from companies

• support underlying data and science that’s reliable – creating comparable and sharable information that can be readily combined to give us a sense of the bigger global picture

• strengthen the interoperability of digital carbon accounting infrastructures.

While there have been some advances in carbon accounting in recent years, many companies still face challenges around data quality and consistency, measurement and reporting, and digital infrastructure.

These challenges hamper companies’ ability to compare, combine and share reliable data as they seek to achieve their sustainability goals. In fact, a global survey by Boston Consulting Group found that just 9 per cent of organisations could comprehensively measure their emissions. Furthermore, organisations estimated an average error rate of 30 to 40 per cent in their emissions measurements.

The Carbon Call’s mission is not to create a new carbon accounting system but to build on existing efforts by leveraging advances in data science, machine learning and cloud computing to help companies improve their measurement, reporting and verification of GHG emissions and removal.

To date, more than 50 organisations have joined the Carbon Call as signatories and/or participating organisations, which is a fantastic achievement. Microsoft wants to help build on this momentum ahead of COP27, where the Carbon Call’s expert advisory group will be releasing a roadmap for stronger carbon accounting that will include recommendations and next steps.

We are calling on more Australian and New Zealand companies to join Microsoft and others as corporate signatories of the Carbon Call. The commitment is very straightforward:

1. comprehensively report GHG emissions across all emission scopes (Scopes 1, 2 and 3) and all classes of GHGs in line with available methodologies and best practices

2. report GHG emissions each year to ensure progress is measured

3. transparently make GHG emissions information available to the public to track progress.

By becoming a Carbon Call signatory, you’ll play a key role in building a more effective global approach to carbon accounting and motivate other companies to improve their leadership in this space. You will also have an opportunity to inform and provide feedback on the Expert Advisory Group’s carbon accounting roadmap.

You can learn more about this exciting initiative at www.carboncall.org and express your company’s interest in joining the Carbon Call as a signatory via this online form.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly if you’d like to discuss the initiative. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have and work out how we can achieve our carbon accounting and sustainability goals together as part of the Carbon Call.