Gold Standard releases guidance to unlock climate action in supply chains and boost the value of low-carbon commodities

Guidance informs proper greenhouse gas accounting that allows standards like FSC and Better Cotton to embed carbon value in certified commodities and enables corporate buyers to reduce supply chain emissions and make concrete progress toward Net Zero targets.

Amidst growing concern around the ambition and credibility of ‘net zero’ target setting, Gold Standard today publishes “Accounting + Reporting the Emissions of Certified Commodities” guidance that can unlock climate action in supply chains and enable concrete progress toward corporate climate goals.

The guidance supports sustainability systems to establish Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting Systems that embed credible emissions accounting into the production processes of their certified commodities. This gives companies buying those commodities the data they need to accurately report on their value chain or “Scope 3” carbon footprint and credibly claim progress toward their climate targets.

“Properly measuring and valuing positive impact is a key opportunity of our time,” says Margaret Kim, CEO of Gold Standard. “Capturing climate impact data of the goods companies buy provides an incentive to purchase low-carbon commodities when they can report lower emissions in their GHG inventories. At the same time, producers can seek potential premiums and preferential procurement and mitigate the risk of losing demand due to pressure for climate data.”

This guidance was developed in collaboration with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Better Cotton, Textile Exchange, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), and Fairtrade International. Facilitated through the Value Change Initiative, companies including H&M Group, Kingfisher, and VF Corporation (VF), have provided feedback to this guidance and/or participated in pilot activities to inform ongoing implementation.

“Our 2030 strategy sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% per ton of cotton produced. This much change cannot be asked of farmers alone - it will take concerted engagement across the value chain,” says Kendra Pasztor, Senior Manager – Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning at Better Cotton. “Our participation in this initiative is an important step in ensuring Better Cotton’s GHG accounting system will be credible and meets the needs of our stakeholders to positively contribute to climate change mitigation.

This initiative is made possible thanks to a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund,, which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO.

About Gold Standard

Gold Standard (@goldstandard) was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs as a best practice standard to help the world #GrowToZero. All Gold Standard-certified projects and programmes accelerate progress toward the Net- Zero ambition of the Paris Climate Agreement while catalyzing impact toward the broader Sustainable Development Goals. Its standard, Gold Standard for the Global Goals, allows climate and development initiatives – from carbon markets to impact funds – to manage, measure and maximise their impacts toward climate security and sustainable development. Certification against the standard provides the confidence that these results are measured and verified, enabling credible impact reporting. ISEAL Code Compliant and backed by a broad NGO Supporter Network, Gold Standard has 2000+ projects underway in over 90 countries, creating billions of dollars of shared value from climate and development action worldwide.