This report describes consensus standards for a multiple pollutant approach to emission reduction reporting and crediting for energy efficiency improvements, production process changes, combustion process changes, and other emission reduction actions.

Implementing a multi-pollutant approach has significant potential benefits. These benefits arise from the fact that many individual actions like increased energy efficiency reduce multiple pollutants.

This multiple pollutant reporting and crediting approach can be applied to the range of pollutants that face or are likely to face increased regulation in the near future including nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulates (PM), mercury (Hg), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) and the other greenhouse gases.  Once the multiple pollutant reporting system is implemented for one pollutant it will be easy to extend it to address other pollutants. 

This approach is described in the report: The Multiple Pollutant Emission Reduction Reporting System (That Includes Emission Reductions from Energy Efficiency and Other Measures). This Report can be downloaded in PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and view the report.

The emission factors and energy prices developed for the Multiple Pollutant Emission Reduction Reporting System are updated several times a year and can be downloaded in PDF format.

Emission Factors and Energy Prices for the Cleaner and Greener Environmental Program

Examples of how to use Emission Factors to calculate emissions and emission reductions

Read Multiple Pollutant Report Foreword

Read Multiple Pollutant Report Executive Summary

Read the News Release on the Multiple Pollutant Emission Reduction Reporting System Report

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Foreword

This report describes consensus standards for a multiple pollutant approach to emission reduction reporting and crediting for energy efficiency improvements, production process changes, combustion process changes, and other emission reduction actions. Implementing a multi-pollutant approach has significant potential benefits. These benefits arise from the fact that many individual actions like increased energy efficiency reduce multiple pollutants.

So how can these potential benefits be captured? Luckily, in the near future opportunities for implementation of a multi-pollutant approach to emission reduction reporting and crediting for the full range of emission reduction actions including energy efficiency improvements are within reach. These opportunities are provided by the stream of tighter restrictions on environmental emissions being enacted within the U.S. and the rest of the world. While the timing and order of pollutants being more tightly regulated in the future varies from country to country, the story is the same: As the negative impacts of each pollutant become recognized, the regulation of these emissions are tightened up.

In the U.S., the stream of pollutants facing tighter regulation start with tighter NOx emission limits in the 22 eastern states in the OTAG region starting in 2003. Each of these 22 states needs to announce how they will meet these requirements by late 1999. Each of these states has the opportunity to uses a multi-pollutant approach, include the full range of emission reduction actions, and use competitive markets to drive down the cost of achieving their emission reduction goals. In 2006, plans will start to be developed to reduce smaller particulate emissions (PM2.5) which have not been regulated in the past. Around 2010, carbon emission reductions may be implemented. Also, mercury emission reductions may be required in the early 2000’s. Whenever a multi-pollutant approach is implemented it will reduce the cost of achieving both the immediate emission reduction goal and reduce the cost of achieving all the subsequent emissions reduction targets for other pollutants.

So what can be done to make this happen? Owners and implementers of emission reduction actions should start right now to doing as much reporting using the multi-pollutant approach as possible to make recognition of the reporting a self fulfilling prophesy. Implementing a multi-pollutant approach to emission reduction reporting and crediting will make it easier for organizations to identify the full range of benefits of their emission reduction actions and be recognized for their contribution to environmental improvement. It will also allow them to capture the full economic value of these actions where markets for emission reduction are created that allow all types of emission reduction actions to compete in the competitive marketplace. This approach will reduce the cost of achieving emission reduction objectives by expanding the recognized pool of available emission reduction actions. Finally it should reduce the administrative burden on state and federal regulatory agencies by moving from the currently common one pollutant at a time reporting that requires multiple reports for multiple pollutants.

Several steps can be taken that provide a direct path to implement multi-pollutant emission reduction reporting and crediting.

First, organizations that have projects in place and are implementing projects need to start reporting their voluntary emission reductions using this approach, which is allowable under 1605(b). This will create the experience needed to support regulatory recognition and crediting of these reductions. It will also create a constituency for regulatory recognition and crediting of these reductions both among organizations owning and implementing these reduction actions and among state and federal regulators.

Second, the organizations using this reporting on a voluntary basis can encourage state and federal regulators to encompass this multi-pollutant approach with the full range of emission reduction actions including energy efficiency into all future emission reduction actions.

Third, state and federal regulators could include this multi-pollutant approach in all future emission reduction actions. When state and federal regulators do include this approach in emission reduction actions, the voluntary reporting standards described in this report will need to be upgraded to regulatory reporting and crediting standards by these state and federal regulators with input from the reporting organizations. In particular, specific standards will need to be set for the calculations, measurement, and verification of emission reduction impacts of actions.

Leonardo Academy’s Cleaner and Greener^sm Program appreciates the financial support of the Air Bureau of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Office of Air Quality Planning Standards (OAQPS) of the US Environmental Protection Agency. We also thank all of the participating organizations that are listed in Appendix A for their input. While the contribution of all of these organization to this project cannot be overstated, it is also important to recognize that they each have their own particular process for making formal decisions that were not used to develop this report. For this reason, while fully recognizing the contribution of all the participants, this report is in the end a report of Leonardo Academy’s Cleaner and Greener^sm Program. We hope that each participating organization as well as their peers in the U.S. and around the world will consider including this multi-pollutant approach in all their future emission reduction actions. To facilitate such consideration, a list of some of the implementation issues that will need to be decide by the US Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental protections agencies are included in Appendix E.

We invite your comments, questions and suggestions on:

* The multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting and crediting system that has been developed, and

* How it can best be implemented on a voluntary and a formal basis.

We encourage potential reporters of emission reductions to start the voluntary reporting of these reductions and to include in this reporting the multi-pollutant emission reduction reporting extensions provided in the appendices of this report. If you have any questions about how to do this please contact us, we would be happy to help you. Voluntary reporting will give your organization information about the magnitude of the emission reductions you are causing and put your organization in a good position to capture the economic value of these emission reductions when they are included in future cap and trade systems for emission reduction.

Using a multi-pollutant approach to emission reduction reporting and crediting should have legs because it is hard to argue with achieving pollution reduction goals at a lower cost.

Michael Arny, Director of Leonardo Academy
Madison, Wisconsin, September 1998

Multiple Pollutant Emission Reduction Reporting System Report

Executive Summary

There are many benefits gained from developing and implementing a multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting system that would support a robust trading market. To create truly competitive emission reduction markets, environmental regulations should allow all sources of emission reductions to participate. These sources include emission reductions by emitters and other measures like energy efficiency. Multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting would:

• Simplify reporting for organizations that have projects to report that affect multiple emissions
• Simplify review of reported information by state and federal regulatory agencies
• Increase the number of organizations that find reporting beneficial and thus increase the reporting of emission reductions
• Lower the cost of reaching environmental objectives for society and individual organizations by increasing the size of the available pool of reported emission reductions
• Provide the accounting needed as the foundation for organizations that own and implement energy efficiency and other projects that reduce emissions. This would allow them to capture the economic value of their emission reductions.

A three-step process was used to develop a multiple pollutant reporting of emission reductions. First, the general criteria for a multiple pollutant reporting system that would support a robust emission reduction trading market were identified. From these criteria, the US DOE EIA 1605(b) Reporting System was deemed robust enough to serve as a good starting block for developing a multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting system. Next, the project evaluated the extent to which 1605(b) addressed each of the general criteria and made extensions to 1605(b) where it did not adequately address the general criteria. Lastly, the multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting system that the project developed was analyzed. This was accomplished by pilot testing the reporting standards developed in this project with real projects. Sixteen individual projects were evaluated using the identified extensions to 1605(b) reporting forms developed for this project. A facility-level report was also prepared based on nine of these individual projects from one company.

Implementing a multiple pollutant reporting system can be done gradually. The purpose of this project was to create a credible reporting system that could to serve as a building block for this process. Once a multiple pollutant emission reduction reporting system is in place, new environmental regulations could include the use of the selected multiple reporting system. Also, when existing environmental regulations are updated, they could then incorporate the use of the selected reporting system into their operation.

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