GHG Management Institute curriculum

The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI) was founded in response to the growing demand for qualified greenhouse gas (GHG) professionals. Just as engineering and financial accounting rely on certified professionals, GHG emissions management requires a highly competent and ethical professional class to undertake measurement, reporting, auditing, and mitigation activities. The Institute has developed a technically rigorous GHG training curriculum authored by leading experts and delivered globally via an online e-learning portal and onsite workshops.

The Institute’s mission is to build and support a global community of experts with the highest standards of professional practice in measuring, accounting, auditing, and managing GHG emissions. This effort is critical to ensuring that market mechanisms and policy responses to climate change are effective and credible, as well as a valuable source of new green jobs.

As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, the Institute is training individuals and developing programs to certify professionals to meet the highest standards of expertise and ethical conduct. The Institute is for individuals and organizations, from beginners to expert practitioners, working on all aspects of climate change, including both voluntary and regulated emission markets, organizational emission inventory reporting, corporate climate risk disclosure, GHG projects for emission reductions and removal enhancements, as well as GHG assessments of supply chains, products, and technologies in various industry sectors.

The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI) was founded in response to the growing demand for qualified greenhouse gas (GHG) professionals. Just as engineering and financial accounting rely on certified professionals, GHG emissions management requires a highly competent and ethical professional class to undertake measurement, reporting, auditing, and mitigation activities. The Institute has developed a technically rigorous GHG training curriculum authored by leading experts and delivered globally via an online e-learning portal and onsite workshops. The Institute’s mission is to build and support a global community of experts with the highest standards of professional practice in measuring, accounting, auditing, and managing GHG emissions. This effort is critical to ensuring that market mechanisms and policy responses to climate change are effective and credible, as well as a valuable source of new green jobs.

As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, the Institute is training individuals and developing programs to certify professionals to meet the highest standards of expertise and ethical conduct. The Institute is for individuals and organizations, from beginners to expert practitioners, working on all aspects of climate change, including both voluntary and regulated emission markets, organizational emission inventory reporting, corporate climate risk disclosure, GHG projects for emission reductions and removal enhancements, as well as GHG assessments of supply chains, products, and technologies in various industry sectors.

Educational program

The Institute's courses are primarily delivered via e-learning to maximize their accessibility and scalability, whilst minimizing costs and emissions. More than 1,200 course seats have been filled by learners in over 50 countries. Currently eight courses are offered, ranging from fundamental GHG accounting frameworks to more technical courses on verification and forest carbon methodologies. Additional courses are in development to address new sectors and mitigation technologies.

Financial aid and full scholarships are available to worthy applicants, especially those at non-profit organizations and from developing countries.

The Institute offers courses online via e-learning, traditional workshops, and blends online learning with face-to-face workshops. The use of online learning tools has been empirically shown to achieve superior outcomes than solely traditional in-class formats. The use of a blended approach achieves the maximum learning outcomes by ensuring learners show up to a workshop already having achieved a relatively high and more uniform level understanding of the relevant topics, at a low incremental cost, thereby allowing workshop time to be used for more advanced skill building. GHGMI has a unique e-learning curriculum of the following courses that are internationally recognized by leading organizations around the world:

• 101 Introduction to Climate Change (forthcoming)

• 102 Introduction to Carbon Markets (in partnership with Point Carbon)

• 201 Basics of Organizational GHG Accounting (in partnership with World Resources Institute)

• 202 Basics of Project-Level GHG Accounting

• 211 GHG Information Management Systems

• 251 Corporate Climate Change Risk Disclosure (in partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project)

• 301 GHG Accounting for Forest Inventories

• 302 GHG Accounting for Forest Projects

• 311 GHG Accounting for Landfill Methane Projects (forthcoming)

• 312 GHG Accounting for Coalmine Methane Projects

• 321 GHG Accounting for Energy Efficiency Projects (forthcoming)

• 331 GHG Accounting for Renewable Energy Project (forthcoming)

• 351 CDM/JI: Navigating Kyoto Project Mechanisms (in partnership with the World Bank)

• 401 GHG Verification for Inventories and Projects

Professional Program

The Institute is building the infrastructure necessary to support a new class of GHG professionals: • Released the field's first code of ethics in 2009; • Operates the world's first and only internationally accredited personnel certification program for GHG management professionals. • Develops GHG accreditation and certification systems for leading GHG programs to assure the work of verifiers (auditors) and compliance reviewers (e.g., RGGI and Kyoto Protocol).

GHGMI, in partnership with Environmental Careers Organization of Canada (ECO Canada), offers a groundbreaking global personnel certification program for “carbon management” professionals.

The Environmental Professional Certification on Greenhouse Gases – EP(GHG) is the world’s first and only professional greenhouse gas-related certification accredited to ISO 17024 and stands as a uniquely robust, globally recognized credential.

GHG Quantification. Professionals in this area quantify, assess and report GHG emissions and emissions reductions that result from the activities of organizations, entities, facilities or GHG emissions reduction projects. Their work can be categorized into two major domains: Inventory Quantification, Project Quantification.

GHG Verification. Professionals in this area act as the independent party that evaluates how a GHG inventory or project has been established and/or reported against program criteria and/or a specific protocol that states expectations of greenhouse gas accounting principles. Their work can be categorized into three major domains: Quantification Expert, Auditing Expert, Team Lead.

In addition to the EP(GHG), GHGMI offers the Environmental Professional in Training title – EPt(GHG). The EPt(GHG) distinction is available to emerging professionals who have satisfied EP(GHG) post-secondary education requirements but have not yet completed the extensive work experience and/or GHG training necessary to achieve the EP(GHG) certification. Both the EP(GHG) and EPt(GHG) titles are available worldwide.

Further work is underway to develop a “GHG Manager” designation with a stronger focus on mitigation and implementation issues.

Accreditation. The EP(GHG) designation is accredited by the Canadian national standards council to ISO 17024 – the standard for personnel certification bodies. Basing the accreditation for the global EP(GHG) program in Canada is the logical choice because Canada serves as the secretariat for all ISO 14000 standards. We also developed the accreditation system for offset project verifiers for the Regional GHG Initiative (RGGI) and the training and expert testing program for the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol's national inventory review process.

Membership Program The Institute is advancing the original work of the GHG Experts Network by further building a global community of experts and professionals with Web 2.0 online tools. The program currently has over 3,000 members in over 100 countries.

Research Program

The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute's Research Program conducts forward-looking independent research. Pairing the unique expert experience of its staff and faculty with the dynamism of its extensive practitioner network, the Institute's Research Program provides insight on foundational areas of climate policy and the practice of environmental management.

In keeping with the Institute’s goal of supporting the development of the social infrastructure necessary to effectively implement future climate change policies at all levels (e.g., from the consumer to international treaty compliance), the Institute's Research Program operates to extend the reach of scholarly research to GHG management. Scientific inquiry is necessary to guide long-term planning and investment, with respect to the design of the GHG-related performance metrics and quality assurance systems (the foundation of GHG mitigation policies and measures). The Institute's Research Program was established to foster and catalyze inquiry through discussion papers and facilitating intelligent discourse through peer-reviewed publishing and workshops.

The unifying theme of the Research Program is implementation. Whereas much of today’s research on climate change has focused on climate science (e.g., atmospheric science and impacts) or policy mechanism design issues (e.g., the economics of cap and trade), this series considers the questions that arise when attention turns to the challenge of policy implementation. The series provides an invaluable spark for what has to date been a largely silent conversation, one whose framing demands a greater imperative when viewed against a background of global society beginning to attempt to implement policy on a scale exceeding any before attempted.

The Institute’s researchers and faculty are GHG measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) specialists and experts in GHG management issues who share a dynamic conviction for the importance of capacity building. The Institute is unique in the field of GHG measurement and management, arguably ahead of its time in terms of the problems it is addressing. However, it was founded to address this paucity of thought leadership and its Research Program is characterized by its commitment in investigating, confronting, and pushing these issues from the dark corners of academia and technocracy to the mainstream. Our projects include:

• The Institute's flagship research venue is Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by Earthscan/Tyler & Francis with an international and independent editorial board.

• The annual Greenhouse Gas and Climate Change Workforce Needs Assessment Survey.

• The consensus-based research reports from the Offset Quality Initiative, of which the Institute is a founding member.

• Discussion papers and briefing reports.