cbam-csrd-pef-complianceSeptember 9, 2025
ISO x GHG Protocol: One playbook for carbon accounting is coming
On 9 September 2025, ISO and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol announced a strategic partnership to harmonize existing greenhouse gas accounting standards and co-develop new ones. This is not a merger of organizations. It is a plan to deliver a dual-logo, unified portfolio that reduces duplication, conflicting interpretations, and audit uncertainty for companies and assurance providers.
What is changing
- One aligned suite: ISO 1406x will be aligned with the GHG Protocol Corporate, Scope 2, and Scope 3 standards under a dual-logo framework.
- A joint Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) standard: The partners will co-develop a PCF standard to support high-granularity value chain data that informs real decarbonization decisions.
- An integrated technical process: Experts from both groups will run an integrated process to deliver cohesive, globally usable standards that support policy interoperability and assurance.
Why it matters (for sustainability and business teams)
- Fewer crosswalks: Teams that map between ISO 1406x and GHG Protocol should see fewer re-baselines, fewer duplicate reports, and clearer audit trails as alignment lands.
- Cleaner supplier data exchange: A joint PCF standard is expected to clarify key fields (system boundaries, allocation choices, land use change, recycled content, biogenic carbon, primary data) and improve comparability across sectors and software.
- Policy and market usability: The move responds to calls from the B7 business community and aligns with the ISSB push for a global baseline, leading to more consistent, comparable carbon data for investors and regulators.
What to do this quarter
- Stay the course and document assumptions: Keep reporting to your current framework(s). Record organizational/operational boundaries, activity data sources, emission factor provenance, allocation rules, and Scope 2 market/location methods to make future mapping smoother.
- Build a field-level dual-standard data model: Crosswalk your current fields to ISO 1406x and GHG Protocol Corporate/Scope 2/Scope 3, and leave placeholders for the upcoming joint PCF fields.
- Prioritize supplier primary data: Standardize questionnaires and focus first on categories with high spend/emissions and weaker data quality.
- Design for auditability: Centralize evidence (meters, invoices, MWh, t-km, allocation rationales) with metadata and lineage so third-party assurance can test once, not twice.
How Climate Seal helps (right now)
- Automate PCFs from BOMs and supplier inputs with transparent, traceable data lineage.
- Map once, export twice: Produce audit-ready outputs aligned with ISO 1406x and GHG Protocol today, positioning you for an easy transition to the dual-logo standards.
- Accelerate supplier data collection with structured requests and built-in validation hints to improve quality at the source.
Ready to simplify your PCFs process? Book a 30‑min readiness demo
