Carbon Accounting and emissions management is becoming a necessity for businesses, governments, and organizations of all sizes. To effectively manage greenhouse gas emissions, we have to do more than just count some of our emissions. We have to create accurate, comprehensive and transparent inventories that account for all the carbon in our economy. Then we have to make this information available and as easily accessible as nutrition information is on food. That means we need lots of people counting lots of emissions, and the big accounting firms are starting to catch on. Financial accounting and carbon accounting are  similar in the sense that like financial accounting, the protocols and standards used to count emissions matter a lot. That’s because of we live in a global economy, and companies that operate internationally need to be held to a single standard. A ton of carbon in china has to mean the same thing as a ton in the U.S., or we can never enforce any worldwide climate agreement, should we ever manage to make one.

680 Schools have committed to becoming carbon neutral by signing the ACUPCC

The carbon accounting industry has come a long way in the past few years. We still have a long way to go, but there are signs of hope. Outside of New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where some 510,000 people see it daily, Deutsche Bank has installed a 67-by-32-foot electronic billboard monitoring the real-time, cumulative pollution humans are emitting into atmosphere. (Click the counter at the top of this post to view the live version of the GHG dashboard on my company blog.) In addition, nearly 700 universities have signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which requires members to report their emissions annually, commit to emissions reduction targets, and work to become carbon neutral.

Investors are starting to demand that public companies disclose their footprints, and the Carbon Disclosure Project has obtained such information from more than 3,700 corporations across the globe. And, although most of the news you hear about U.S. regulation of emissions is about our likely doomed cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA has been regulating emissions on their own with relatively little political interference. The new Mandatory GHG Reporting Rule will require any entity that emits more than 100,000 tons to report their emissions to the government. This regulation alone will cover around 85% of our nation’s economy, meaning that companies from all sectors of the economy will be legally required to count their emissions. These initiatives and countless others will ensure that carbon accounting will continue to be a bigger part of our lives, but there is no reason you can’t help speed things along. Go ahead and count–really count–your household’s carbon footprint. Think about what’s missing, and help the cause by joining others in demanding full disclosure from companies.