Brazilian companies launch carbon reporting programme
London, 15 May: Eleven major Brazilian companies have committed to report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through a new voluntary registry. By signing up to the Brazil Greenhouse Gas Protocol Program, the companies commit to use the GHG Protocol, the leading tool for corporate GHG emissions reporting, and publicly disclose their emissions of the six main GHGs.

“The programme provides options for sound measurement and allows members to take action to reduce their GHG emissions,” said Thelma Krug, secretary of climate change at Brazil's environment ministry, at the programme’s launch on Monday.

“Greenhouse gases are a business issue,” said Artur Grynbaum, CEO of O Boticário, a cosmetics company based in Brazil. “In the context of ongoing international climate negotiations, we need specific approaches for different sectors to measure and verify emissions.”

The initiative mirrors the Climate Registry in North America, which also uses the GHG Protocol, developed by Washington, DC-based environmental think-tank the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

A total of 16 companies signed up to at the launch, including 11 Brazilian firms: Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, CNEC, Copel, Grupo Abril, Natura, Nova Petroquímica, O Boticário, Petrobras, Sadia and Votorantim. The Brazilian subsidiaries of Alcoa, Anglo American, Arcelor Mittal, Ford and Wal-Mart also joined.

“With this new programme, Brazil’s government and business community are building the foundation for GHG management. You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Manish Bapna, executive vice president of the WRI.

Antonia Gawel, assistant programme manager at the WBSCD in Geneva, said that membership of the programme does not commit companies to reducing their emissions, “but the end objective is to have a comprehensive accounting of emissions that will lead to companies working to reduce them”.

The programme – which is open to other companies to join – is also intended to build capacity among members and local partners to measure and manage emissions, Gawel added. Information reported through the programme will be made publicly available, via an online platform that is to be built over the next 12 months.

Along with the WRI and the WBCSD, partners in the programme include the Brazilian environment ministry, the Brazilian Council for Sustainable Development, and Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Funding is provided by the US Agency for International Development and the British Embassy.