Going Beyond Carbon Footprints with Avoided Emissions

Caroline Gaudreault

Director

Table of Contents

• What are Avoided Emissions?
• Reporting Frameworks
• Who Benefits?
• How Anthesis Can Help
• Contact Us

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In the race to limit global warming to 1.5°C, businesses are under increasing pressure to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But what if companies could go beyond just shrinking their carbon footprints and actually become part of the climate solution?

Traditional GHG inventories focus solely on the emissions a company causes through its operations and value chain, but they may overlook the positive climate impact of the solutions a company provides. Reporting avoided emissions fills this gap by capturing how a company’s products or services help reduce emissions in society compared to a reference scenario. This enables organisations to demonstrate their contribution to global decarbonisation, prioritise high-impact innovations, and provide a forward-looking metric that reflects their role in enabling a low-carbon future – something GHG inventories alone cannot reveal.

What are avoided emissions?

There are different definitions for avoided emissions but one of the most used is from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD): “The estimated difference in full life cycle GHG emissions that result from a scenario with a solution in place, compared to a reference scenario without the solution when reference scenario emissions are higher” and where the reduction needs to occur in another actors’ direct emissions.

Note that, in contrast, the GHG Protocol currently does not require that emissions reductions are in another party’s direct emissions. Solutions that can generate avoided emissions can be classified in intermediary solutions (or enabling solutions) and end-use solutions.

Accounting approaches for GHG inventories and avoided emissions are fundamentally different. A corporate GHG inventory contains data on the historical GHG emissions of a company’s value chain (Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions using inventory accounting). Avoided emissions, on the other hand, are calculated as the difference between two scenarios.

In some cases, avoided emissions will overlap with a company’s scope 3 emissions. For instance, a company that introduces a product that is more efficient in the use phase will see a reduction in its scope 3 – category 10 (use of sold products) emissions, but could also claim the difference between the life cycle emissions of the two generations of products as avoided emissions.

Frameworks for credible reporting

To ensure integrity and avoid greenwashing, there are three main guidance documents for accounting and reporting avoided emissions:

• Guidance on Avoided Emissions – Helping business drive innovations and scale solutions toward Net Zero (WBCSD 2025);
• Avoided Emissions & Climate Investing: A Guide for Investors and Businesses (WBCSD 2025); and
• Estimating and Reporting the Comparative Emissions Impacts of Products (The GHG Protocol 2019).

To measure avoided emissions, the GHG Protocol offers a flexible, product-level comparative framework that is based on life cycle assessment (LCA). In contrast, WBCSD proposes a more comprehensive step-by-step calculation framework.  A company should report avoided emissions only under a certain set of criteria defined by the GHG Protocol and WBCSD:

1. Climate Action Credibility: The company must have a comprehensive GHG inventory and a science-based climate strategy.
2. Climate Science Alignment: The solution must align with 1.5°C pathways.
3. Contribution Legitimacy: The solution must have a direct and significant decarbonising impact.

In all cases, avoided emissions must be reported separately from a company’s carbon footprint and cannot be used to claim carbon neutrality. Transparency is key: companies must disclose methodology, third-party verification, overlaps with and any potential rebound, and side effects.

Who benefits from reporting on avoided emissions?

Reporting avoided emissions is most useful to capture positive GHG impacts that are not already captured in a company’s GHG inventory, especially when a company will report higher emissions in their Scope 1 emissions to provide solutions that reduce another party’s direct emissions.

Many companies that report their corporate GHG inventories do so because their operations inherently produce emissions – often as a result of manufacturing, transporting, or selling goods that fulfill a specific function in the global economy. However, there is another category of companies whose primary role is to enable the functioning and transformation of that economy. These are the recyclers, waste management firms, next-generation materials startups, clean tech innovators, digital optimization platforms, and infrastructure providers for renewable energy and electrification. While their own emissions may appear modest or even misleadingly high under traditional Scope 1, 2, and 3 accounting, their true climate value lies in the emissions they help others avoid. These enablers are the backbone of decarbonisation, yet their contributions are often invisible in standard GHG inventories.

Another case where reporting avoided emissions becomes interesting is in cases where a company would see an increase in its reported GHG emissions, despite the net effect of a given change being to reduce total GHG emissions. This can occur, for example, by increasing product longevity. This is where avoided emissions become essential—not just as a metric, but as a recognition of their catalytic role in accelerating the net zero transition.

How Anthesis can help

Anthesis can support organisations in reporting and leveraging avoided emissions by integrating this forward-looking metric into broader decarbonisation and net zero strategies. Recognising that traditional GHG inventories do not capture the positive climate impact of low-carbon solutions, Anthesis can help clients quantify and communicate how their products, services, or projects reduce emissions in society compared to conventional alternatives.

Through tailored consulting, life cycle assessments, and scenario modeling, Anthesis can enable companies to identify high-impact opportunities, validate claims with scientific rigor, and align with frameworks such as the WBCSD guidance. This empowers businesses not only to demonstrate their contribution to global decarbonisation but also to drive innovation, attract investment, and differentiate themselves in a climate-conscious market.