Home > Areas of expertise > Energy and climate change strategies > Ensuring environmental integrity

This is true for reporting to meet legal requirements (such as the EU ETS), corporate sustainability reports, the famous Carbon Disclosure Programme, as well as for voluntary initiative such as WWF’s Climate Savers Programme. The ‘greenness’ of organizations, products and services has also become an important marketing tool, demonstrating environmental awareness and openness as well as low environmental impacts. This can also be seen in a growing trend for organizations to strive to achieve carbon neutrality and the carbon labelling of products in the retail sector. Trust in the credibility of information disclosed to clients, the market, legislative authorities and the management of a company is essential. To achieve this goal, credible external validation of environmental claims is essential.

In our work for companies, governments and non-governmental organizations across the world Ecofys has established an outstanding reputation for the validation of (renewable) energy and greenhouse gas emission reporting systems, and for the verification energy and emission data for a range of voluntary and mandatory schemes.

The difference between our work and that of many mainstream auditing companies lies in the decades of experience in developing and applying monitoring methodologies and labels. This is complemented by our customised assessment methodologies, which focus on results, capture specific aspects of the company and ensure that reputational risks are avoided. Our broad client portfolio, including governments, corporate clients and environmental NGOs, guarantees a balanced approach to assessing environmental integrity.

References:

• Development of the Gold Standard version 1 and 2 - Gold Standard Foundation.
  For the reports, click here

• Developing the EU ETS Monitoring & Reporting Guidelines for the European Commission
• Designing the sustainability reporting scheme under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) – UK Department of Transport
• Assessing the quality of voluntary credit standards for ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency)
• Developing the GoldStandard label for the CDM and voluntary credits for WWF and the GoldStandard Foundation (see the website)
• Supporting the development of the UK Carbon Trust’s product carbon labelling scheme
• Developing a Carbon Label for manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta – WWF Hong Kong
• Verifying corporate greenhouse gas emission data and renewable energy quota and Validation of greenhouse gas monitoring systems for various clients, including for Nokia, Novo Nordisk, GlaxoSmithKline, Pizza Hut, Orange and Akzo Nobel
• Verifying base year and baseline emission data for the WWF Climate Savers Programme for Lafarge, Tetrapak and Spitsbergen Travel, among other companies
• Verifying emission reports under the EU emissions trading system for various clients, including Henkel, Cognis, E.On, EADS Eurocopter, Pirelli
• Certifying Green Electricity Labelling, e.g. for npower, HEAG NaturPur and NaturEnergie
• GHG Monitoring, Reporting and Verification training workshops - large industries (e.g. Endesa), verifying and accrediting entities (AENOR, Generalitat de Catalunya) and EU member states and regions.