Imagine you have a project that’s meant to reduce the amount of harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs) released into the environment. To accurately measure how much it helps, you need to consider everything that’s directly and indirectly affected by the project.
Here’s the breakdown in simple terms:
- Identify the Project Activities: First, pinpoint exactly what your project is doing. Whether it’s planting trees, using clean energy, or anything else, you need a clear understanding of the main actions of your project.
- Identify Direct and Indirect Effects: For each of these activities, figure out what happens directly (primary effects) and what else might be affected indirectly (secondary effects). For instance, if your project involves using wind turbines (activity), the primary effect is generating clean electricity, and a secondary effect could be attracting businesses to the area.
- Analyze Secondary Effects: Go deeper into these secondary effects. Not all of them will significantly contribute to reducing greenhouse gases. So, carefully analyze each one and pick out the ones that truly matter when it comes to cutting down those harmful gases. For example, if attracting businesses is a secondary effect, you’d want to know if those businesses are also adopting environmentally friendly practices.
- Setting a Wide Boundary: Your assessment boundary is like a big circle around everything connected to your project that affects greenhouse gases, no matter where it happens or who’s in charge. This helps make sure you’re not missing any important effects. It encourages a thorough look at how your project affects emissions, even if those effects happen outside your project area or are beyond your control.
- Leave Some Decisions to Project Developers: The people leading the project get to decide what’s considered “significant” when it comes to these effects. They have some flexibility in making judgments based on their specific situation.
- Connects to Baseline Emissions: To do all of this, you also need to consider the baseline emissions, which is like the starting point or the emissions you would expect without your project. Understanding the primary and secondary effects depends on knowing what would happen if your project didn’t exist.
Requirements
For complete, accurate, and transparent quantification of project-based GHG reductions, the GHG assessment boundary (above Figure) shall be clearly defined and reported. The GHG assessment boundary shall include the primary and significant secondary effects of all project activities.
The following steps are required for defining the GHG assessment boundary:
- Identify each project activity associated with the GHG project.
- Identify all primary effects related to each project activity.
- Consider all secondary effects related to each project activity.
- Estimate the relative magnitude of all secondary effects.
- Assess the significance of all secondary effects.
Exclude insignificant secondary effects from the GHG assessment boundary. Justify any exclusions.
