A Fight Over Big Tech’s Emissions Has the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Caught in the Crossfire

Last week’s request for public comment from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) doesn’t look like a major win for a tech giant to the naked eye. In fact, it seems almost clerical. But for Google and Microsoft, the announcement constitutes a considerable win in their years-long battle against their competitors over how to account for the carbon emissions of data centers and, by extension, AI.

The announcement shows that the GHGP is one step closer to implementing a mandatory hourly accounting method for electricity emissions—a carbon-accounting system Google and Microsoft have advocated for since 2020 and 2021, respectively.

“We support the proposed Scope 2 updates, which would increase the accuracy and the decarbonization impact of carbon inventories,” says Google spokesperson Mara Harris. Microsoft declined to comment.

As Google celebrates the GHGP’s move, other actors in the emissions space, even those traditionally aligned with Google’s preferred carbon-accounting methodology, note that the fight to get here wasn’t all pretty.

“There’s an intensive lobbying effort going on here, one that these major corporations have each staked considerable reputation and money into, and they are getting a bit ugly,” says Jesse Jenkins, an associate professor at Princeton University and the leader of the Google-funded ZERO (Zero-Carbon Energy Systems Research and Optimization) Laboratory.

Out of Scope

Scope 2 is a subcategory used by the GHGP to account for a company’s indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat, or cooling. For tech giants, Scope 2 emissions have surged as AI has driven massive growth in data center energy use. As these loads have grown, so too has the pressure to find a new way to account for them.

The GHGP announced its intentions to revise its Scope 2 accounting standards at the end of 2022, eventually accepting a $9.25 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund. Suddenly, the battle between tech giants had spilled out of the white papers and into the real world, with a GHGP-sponsored “working group” set to hammer out the details of what the new standards should be.

Some, though, believed it was never a fair fight.

“Our understanding was that we would have an arena for ideas to go back and forth. It seemed like [from the beginning] it was pretty well-baked where it was going to go,” says a working group member and supporter of an alternative form of Scope 2 accounting, known as “emissions first,” who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.