GHG Protocol for Project Accounting - Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Identifying the Baseline Candidates
G U I D A N C E
The level of penetration that represents common practice
may differ between sectors and geographic areas,
and may depend on the diversity of different baseline
candidates within a geographic area. For example, in
one area a certain technology may have a 60 percent
market share, while in another area it may only have a
15 percent market share. In both instances, the technology
may be common practice. Low rates of penetration
or market shares that represent common practice
usually occur in areas where there is a large diversity of
baseline candidates. If there are few alternative technologies
or practices, the common practice penetration
rate may be quite high.
Common practice technologies or practices may or may
not correspond to what is legally required.
7.5 Identifying the Final List
of Baseline Candidates
7.5.1 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BASELINE
CANDIDATES AND BASELINE PROCEDURES
The number of baseline candidates to be identified and
how baseline candidates are defined may differ, depending
on the procedure used to identify baseline emissions.
For the performance standard, the baseline candidates
include all individual plants, instances of a technology,
or practices that provide the same product or service as
the project activity. For the project-specific procedure,
baseline candidates usually include a more limited
number of individual instances and/or representative
types of plants, technologies, or practices.
For example, there may be six plants producing the
same product as the project activity—three plants
utilizing technology X (plants A, B and C), two plants
using technology Y (plants D and E) and one plant
using technology Z (plant F). The baseline candidates
for the performance standard would include the six
individual plants (plants A, B, C, D, E and F). For the
project-specific procedure, the baseline candidates
could be the representative technologies—X, Y and Z
(see Figure 7.3).
For the project-specific procedure, representative types
of technologies or practices should be carefully defined
and explained. In some cases, an individual plant or
instance of a technology or practice may be chosen as
representative. In other cases, it may make sense to
define a representative type using average performance
characteristics or GHG emissions from a number of
individual plants. For example, the GHG emission rate
of technology X may be characterized as the average
GHG emission rate of plants A, B, and C. Sometimes
there are wide variations in performance for a certain
type of technology—e.g., coal-fired boilers with a wide
range of fuel-use efficiencies. For these technologies, it
will often make sense to define baseline candidates
corresponding to different performance levels—or for
specific makes and models—of the technology.
Representative types of technologies or practices should
always be present in some form within the appropriate
geographic area and temporal range.
Finally, for the project-specific procedure, each baseline
candidate should also be capable of providing an equivalent
quantity of product or service as the project
activity. In certain situations, this may mean that a
single baseline candidate is defined as a number of similar
smaller plant technologies or practices that in
aggregate provide an equivalent quantity of product or
service as the project activity.
7.5.2 SELECTING A FINAL LIST
The final baseline candidates used to estimate baseline
emissions are those that fall within the defined
geographic area and temporal range and provide the
same product or service as the project activity.
Completeness, relevance, and transparency are the most
important principles to use when identifying the baseline
candidates. The final list of baseline candidates,
their characteristics, and a description of how they were
identified within the geographic area and temporal
range should be documented before undertaking one of
the baseline procedures.
In some cases, the number of specific baseline candidates
within the geographic area and temporal range
may be quite large. In these cases, a statistical
sampling may be used to define the final list of baseline
candidates used in the baseline procedures. Methods
used to identify a sample of baseline candidates should
be fully described and explained.
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CHAPTER 7