Report:

The Tech Sector's Battle for the Future of Emissions Accounting

• Key revisions of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol will determine how companies report emissions from their electricity use.
• Leading technology companies, whose emissions reduction targets are currently being challenged by energy-hungry data centers, are keen to influence the reporting standards.
• The analysis shows that sponsored research is now the technology sector’s primary battleground for influencing the accounting process, and ultimately, how much fossil fuel energy can be labeled ‘net-zero’ for reporting purposes.
• Despite clear interest in the standards, technology companies appear hesitant to publicly declare their positions or directly advocate on the GHG Protocol, leaving this to their industry associations.

New analysis by InfluenceMap of corporate engagement with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) revision process has found that the world’s biggest tech companies are leading lobbying on the issue via competing corporate-funded research, but are less keen to be overtly engaged in the direct revision process. These findings come as the 60-day public consultation period on the standards opens this week.

According to the GHG Protocol website, 97% of S&P Global 500 companies reported to CDP using the GHG Protocol as their framework in 2023. The Scope 2 reporting standards under discussion will therefore set the accounting framework for a huge number of large companies and, crucially, determine whether companies can claim ‘net-zero’ emissions in the future. Any revisions are particularly existential for technology companies that have historically had some of the most ambitious emissions reduction targets in the real economy, but have seen their Scope 2 emissions increase in recent years due to energy-hungry data centers.

Sponsored research appears to be a primary avenue by which these technology companies are attempting to advance their positions on emissions accounting. Looking at literature produced over the course of the GHG Protocol review process, InfluenceMap has found at least 15 corporate-sponsored studies or white-papers from technology companies focused on the topic, with no other sector sponsoring comparable levels of research.

Overall, the analysis examined over 25 studies on emissions accounting published since October 2017. 15 of the 25 were sponsored by technology companies, 13 of which were released since November 2022, when the revision process opened. Of those 13, Meta has sponsored three pieces of research, Amazon has sponsored two, Google (Alphabet) has sponsored seven, and Microsoft and Meta co-sponsored one. Apple,Oracle, and Nvidia have notably not taken public positions on the issue.

Company and Industry Association Positions on Emissions Accounting

In their sponsored literature,Google and Microsoft advocate for granular accounting to drive 24/7 carbon-free energy procurement. Google-sponsored studies broadly highlight the system-level decarbonization benefits of granular accounting, with particular emphasis on driving deployment of advanced clean energy technologies, such as battery storage, that may not otherwise see market uptake in the absence of corporate investment.Microsoft has also demonstrated support for granular accounting in its direct communications and limited funding of research.

Through its research, Meta is leading advocacy to support the inclusion of an emissions-matching metric, an accounting framework that focuses on the “avoided emissions” resulting from corporate clean energy procurement. Amazon has also funded several white papers advocating for the approach. Studies sponsored by Meta argue that emissions matching maximizes emissions reductions – they also tend to emphasize the high costs of procurement associated with granular accounting and downplay the emissions reduction impact of hourly 24/7 matching. These studies have suggested that granular accounting carries a significant cost premium relative to other matching strategies, which may hinder corporate participation in voluntary clean energy procurement.

Overall, InfluenceMap’s analysis of 25 pieces of research on the topic found that numerous studies conclude that granular accounting more accurately represents companies’ Scope 2 emissions and drives investment in carbon-free energy development that closely aligns with IPCC recommendations for transitioning the energy mix and meeting global temperature targets. Many of these also raised concerns about the methodologies used to promote emissions matching, suggesting that this approach may overstate corporate emissions reductions. This suggests that emissions matching may allow companies to report net-zero emissions while continuing to directly power their operations with fossil fuels.

Although the volume of research demonstrates that technology companies are very involved in this revision process, they appear hesitant to publicly declare their positions or to advocate publicly on the GHG Protocol itself. Aside from Google, none of the technology companies assessed for this report appear to have submitted a public response to the GHG Protocol’s open survey between November 2022 – February 2023. However, technology companies are the common thread among several cross-sector groups that have been actively engaging directly on the revisions. This includes the Emissions First Partnership(EFP), made up primarily of technology sector companies, including Amazon, Intel, Meta, and Salesforce, and the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA), which includes Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce. Notably, the Emissions First Partnership submitted complaints to the GHG Protocol in September 2025, opposing the GHG Protocol’s updated transparency measures for the upcoming consultation, which require respondents to publicly disclose their organization.

In June 2025, the GHG Protocol published a progress update which acknowledged that emissions accounting through hourly and regional matching (the more granular approach) “supports more credible inventory reporting and can help create demand signals for a more resilient and diverse mix of clean energy resources that are available when and where they’re needed,” but offered limited detail. Around the time this was published, InfluenceMap tracked an uptick in advocacy for the emissions-matching approach from key industry associations. In a letter to the GHG Protocol Secretariat, EFP appeared to oppose mandated hourly matching and advocated for the inclusion of an impact accounting (emissions matching) metric, alongside market-based and location-based accounting. In a May 2025 letter to the Chair of the GHG Protocol’s Independent Standards Board, CEBA (which counts Google as a member) also strongly opposed mandated requirements for granular accounting, noting that its members “cannot abide by mandatory granular matching.” CEBA reiterated the key points of this letter in a May 2025 blog on its website.

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For further information or to arrange interviews, please contact:

Kitty Hatchley, Media Manager, InfluenceMap (London)

Email: kitty.hatchley {@} influencemap.org