GHG Project Additionality

Definition

GHG Project Additionality is a concept relevant in distinguishing a GHG Project Activity from its GHG Baseline Scenario. It is criterion often applied to GHG project activities, stipulating that project-based GHG reductions should only be quantified if the project activity would not have happened anyway - i.e., that the project activity (or the same technologies or practices that it employs) would not have been implemented in its baseline scenario.

The difficulty is that many projects that reduce GHG Emissions (relative to historical levels) would happen regardless of the existence of a GHG program and without any concern for climate change mitigation. If a project “would have happened anyway,” then issuing offset credits for its GHG reductions will actually allow a positive net increase in GHG emissions, undermining the emissions target of the GHG program.

Whatever methods are used to address additionality, a GHG Program must decide how stringent to make its additionality rules and criteria based on its policy objectives:

• Under the project-specific approach, stringency is determined by the weight of evidence required to identify a particular baseline scenario (and possibly to pass any required additionality tests).
• Under the performance-standard approach, stringency is determined by how low the performance standard GHG emission rate is relative to the average GHG emission rate of similar practices or technologies.

The GHG Protocol indicates (but does not require) a number possible GHG Project Additionallity Tests

Examples

• Replacing older generation combustion engines with newer technologies may be driven purely by cost reduction objectives yet may also reduce GHG emissions

Issues and Challenges

• Setting the stringency of additionality rules involves a balancing act. Additionality criteria that are too lenient and grant recognition for “non-additional” GHG reductions will undermine the GHG program’s effectiveness. On the other hand, making the criteria for additionality too stringent could unnecessarily limit the number of recognized GHG reductions, in some cases excluding project activities that are truly additional and highly desirable. In practice, no approach to additionality can completely avoid these kinds of errors. Generally, reducing one type of error will result in an increase of the other.