The International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers (GIIGNL) has launched a comprehensive framework for a consistent industry approach for declaring cargoes carbon neutral, as it seeks to make the practice of offsetting emissions a last resort.
The Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) and GHG (Greenhouse Gas) neutral framework is part of a collective industry movement to account for and reduce GHG emissions associated with LNG, an increasingly important source of energy worldwide.
Environmental groups are skeptical about the use of carbon offsets and say the ability to pay for emission reductions elsewhere could prolong the use of fossil fuels. Around 30 cargoes or less than 1 percent of global LNG trades have been declared carbon neutral to date, but the number is expected to grow as companies seek to differentiate themselves through their environmental credentials.
Jean Abiteboul President – GIIGNL
“To fulfill the LNG industry’s critical and unique role in supporting the global economy to transition to net-zero emissions, it is imperative that our sector consistently and collaboratively accounts for emissions across the entire value chain. Alongside reducing and offsetting overall emissions, it is our intention that the framework assists the industry in demonstrating greater transparency.”
Entities at every stage of the LNG life cycle can rely on the framework to assess the GHG footprints of their LNG cargoes. The framework outlines a series of steps, with the first requiring companies to monitor and verify their greenhouse gas emissions intensity.
For a company to declare its shipment carbon neutral, it would need to show transparent emissions data, make the best efforts to reduce emissions at its operations and use offsets for any remaining emissions for the cargo’s lifecycle, including scope 3 emissions, or those generated when the customer uses the fuel.
Not all of the 30 shipments that have claimed to be carbon neutral to date include scope 3 emissions and therefore would not have been able to make that claim under the GIIGNL framework, Mr. Vincent Demoury, Secretary-General of GIIGNL said.
