The Climate Registry contains organizational boundaries. These are defined to enable the tracking, accounting and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. Companies within the United States provid information on a voluntary basis to assist in the ongoing battle to reduce global warming potential.

Organizational boundaries define an entity’s operation and also specify whether it is controlled or owned by the company reporting. Reporting can be further based on an equity share or a consolidated control approach.

When it comes to defining organizational boundaries, an equity share of production is an accounting method involving a report for each operation based upon its share of the economic interests. A percentage would then reflect the extent of the ownership, or rights, and is based on the profit and loss share.

Organizational boundaries can be defined using the control approach. This approach determines an accounting method where an entity will report 100% of its GHG emissions, irregardless of ownership.

The Climate Registry is an important institution that aims to distribute information concerning greenhouse gas emissions. This nonprofit and nongovernmental organization has developed important standards used throughout North America to calculate and report emissions in a unified fashion. More than 330 corporations from all industry sectors, nonprofit groups and government entities are Registry members.

Organizational boundaries must be reported in full under the greenhouse gas emissions registry. Reports are required for revenue and nonrevenue services, administrative buildings, leased or owned stations and facilities, services provided under contract to another company, privately operated services, van pools and paratransit.

Greenhouse gases are of significant concern because they lead to global warming. Among these environmentally damaging gases are hydrochlorofluorocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons, such as those found in refrigeration and cooling systems, carbon dioxide, methane, chlorine, bromine, nitrous oxide, methyl bromide, methyl chloroform, sulfur hexafluoride, hydroxyl, halons, carbon tetrachloride, fluorine, and the fluorinated gases hydrofluorinated ethers and nitrogen trifluoride.

In the Climate Registrys inventory management plan, facilities need to indicate whether they are reporting based on either the control approach with equity share using operational control criteria; control approach with equity share using financial control; control approach based on operational control; or control approach based using financial control criteria. The inventory reporting document also includes a facilities and association emissions section in which a master list of all the buildings under an entitys organizational boundaries must be listed, along with their addresses, percentage of ownership or control, types of emissions and type of equipment or source. Because of the complexity of emissions tracking and reporting, many facilities equipped with refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) systems or heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are using refrigerant management programs to automatically track and report the information.