Untangling deliverability, additionality and double counting related to renewable energy certificates for improved scope 2 emissions accounting

The greenhouse gas (GHG) Protocol is the most widely used global standard for voluntary corporate GHG emission accounting and reporting (WBCSD/WRI 2004, Walenta 2021). Initially developed in 2001 through a multistakeholder process with heavy industry involvement, the standard has since been updated and elaborated multiple times. A central concept within the standard is the organization of corporate emissions into direct (scope 1) and indirect emissions, with the latter category further divided into point-of-generation emissions from purchased and consumed electricity, heating, cooling, and steam (scope 2) and all other indirect emissions (scope 3). With corporate electricity consumption accounting for around 15% of global GHG emissions (Schäfer et al 2025), scope 2 emissions are a central component of most company's GHG accounts. Since 2015, the GHG Protocol has permitted companies to report scope 2 emissions through purchases of renewable energy certificates⁴ (RECs) (GHG Protocol 2015) (box 1). Each REC purchase allows a company to report zero scope 2 emissions for 1 MWh of its electricity consumption as if the company is physically supplied by the renewable generation facility that they bought the REC from. Since then, companies have greatly increased their RECs purchases and RECs have come to play an important role in companies´ reporting on progress against net-zero targets (Bjørn et al 2022, 2025, Ruiz Manuel and Blok 2023, Langer et al 2024).