(CSA Standards: Ontario, Canada) -- CSA Standards, a leading standards-based solutions organization, and The Climate Registry, the leading North American greenhouse gas (GHG) registry, recently announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that more closely aligns the two organizations in their efforts to support consistent GHG measurement and reporting in Canada.

“This MOU highlights CSA Standards’ and The Climate Registry’s mutual purpose and common goal of building standardized methods for measuring and tracking GHG emissions,” says Suzanne Kiraly, president of CSA Standards. “Continued collaboration between our two organizations will serve to further these efforts and in turn, benefit various organizations, including governments and industries.”

CSA has been working with Canadian jurisdictions to build components that support GHG reporting, regional emissions trading systems, and program performance tracking. The Climate Registry operates the premier North American voluntary GHG registry, with more than 340 members. Given its unique relationship with the 12 Canadian provinces and territories and the 41 states with representatives that sit on its board of directors, The Climate Registry also plays an active role in supporting mandatory reporting schemes across North America.

“Our North American scope and relationships with provinces, territories, and states give us a strong platform from which to drive consistent reporting and harmonization,” says Alex Carr, Canadian regional director, The Climate Registry. “By working together with CSA, we can better support Canadian governments and industry as climate policy continues to evolve and capturing high-quality GHG emissions data becomes even more important—both to regulators and to companies wanting to manage their risks, improve energy efficiency, and demonstrate their leadership.”

The MOU establishes a collaboration between The Climate Registry and CSA to promote voluntary reporting to The Climate Registry, and the adoption of The Climate Registry’s platform for mandatory reporting among Canadian jurisdictions.

Additional objectives of the MOU include pursuing opportunities for training and capacity building programs related to The Climate Registry, as well as for general GHG accounting, verification, reporting, and tracking activities. It is also designed to facilitate the recognition of early provincial action and leadership, as represented by membership in The Climate Registry, by federal climate change programs.

On behalf of Canada, CSA Standards acted as the secretariat for the development of new international ISO 14064 standards for GHG inventory and reporting at the organization and project level, as well as standards regarding validation verification of inventories and projects. CSA Standards provides training and capacity building on GHG accounting, including the requirements of The Climate Registry. In addition, CSA Standards offers programs for the certification of GHG verifiers and soon will offer a certification for GHG quantifiers.

About The Climate Registry
The Climate Registry is a nonprofit collaboration among North American states, provinces, territories, and Native Sovereign Nations that sets consistent and transparent standards to calculate, verify, and publicly report greenhouse gas emissions into a single registry. The Registry supports both voluntary and mandatory reporting programs and provides comprehensive, accurate data to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Members that join The Climate Registry pledge to report their emissions inventories according to the Registry’s rigorous, comprehensive standards. These members are part of a powerful community of organizations working to achieve emissions reductions, improve risk management preparation, and advance environmental leadership with an accurate and comprehensive account of their GHG emissions inventories.

Please visit www.theclimateregistry.org.