Glossary›Emissions accounting and measurement›ISO 14064-1
Glossary term
Cluster D · D23
Tier 2
ISO 14064-1
Definition
ISO 14064-1 is the international standard specifying requirements for designing, developing and reporting an organisation’s greenhouse gas inventory. It classifies emissions into six direct and indirect categories rather than three scopes. It is widely used in verification contexts internationally and is not the standard Australian climate reporting requires.
ISO 14064-1:2018
· not referenced by AASB S2 · alternative framework, in force internationally
On this page
In practice
This term is in the glossary for a diagnostic reason rather than a compliance one. Entities meet ISO 14064-1 through verification providers, through European or Asian parent companies, through customers imposing supply chain requirements, and through certification programmes, and then ask whether it satisfies their Australian obligation. It does not, and the answer is short: AASB S2 paragraph 29(a)(ii) names the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (2004), and the only permitted alternative is a method required by a jurisdictional authority or listing exchange under Appendix B paragraph B24. A voluntary election to use ISO 14064-1 is not that.
The structural difference worth knowing is the classification. ISO 14064-1:2018 uses six categories rather than three scopes.
ISO 14064-1 category
Rough GHG Protocol equivalent
1. Direct emissions
Scope 1
2. Indirect emissions from imported energy
Scope 2
3. Indirect emissions from transportation
Spans Scope 1, Scope 2 and several Scope 3 categories
4. Indirect emissions from products used by the organisation
Upstream Scope 3
5. Indirect emissions associated with the use of the organisation’s products
Downstream Scope 3
6. Indirect emissions from other sources
Residual Scope 3
The mapping is approximate at the edges and the numbering collides confusingly with the GHG Protocol’s fifteen Scope 3 categories. An “ISO category 3” and a “Scope 3 Category 3” are unrelated things, and a basis of preparation mixing the two numbering systems is genuinely ambiguous to a reader.
The 2018 revision narrowed the gap substantially by expanding the indirect categories to align better with Scope 3, so the substantive measurement requirements of the two frameworks are largely convergent. The difference that persists is presentational and it matters for disclosure: AASB S2 requires emissions disclosed by scope, so an ISO-structured inventory has to be re-presented into scopes before it can be disclosed, and the re-presentation is a mapping exercise that needs documenting.
Where ISO 14064-1 is genuinely useful to an Australian reporter is as an internal discipline rather than a reporting basis. Part 3 of the series, ISO 14064-3, covers verification and validation, and an entity that has been through ISO verification usually arrives at its first assurance engagement with a stronger evidence file than one that has not. That experience is worth something; the standard itself is not a substitute.
What the assurer does with it
Where an entity has an ISO 14064-1 history, the assurer’s interest is in the mapping and in whether the ISO framework has leaked into the statutory inventory unexamined.
They ask for the mapping from the six ISO categories to the three scopes and test it for completeness in both directions: everything in the ISO inventory should land somewhere in the scopes, and nothing should be lost or duplicated in the crossing. The places it goes wrong are predictable: ISO category 3, transportation, splits across Scope 1, Scope 2 and several Scope 3 categories depending on who owns the vehicle and who paid for the movement.
They also test whether the ISO inventory’s boundary and inclusion decisions were carried across without being re-tested against the GHG Protocol consolidation approaches and against AASB S2. An entity that built its first inventory for ISO verification sometimes inherits exclusions that were defensible under one framework and are not under the other. That is a boundary finding and it is a common one in entities with certification history.
Where an entity holds an ISO 14064-3 verification statement, the assurer treats it as information, not as assurance. It was issued under a different standard, to a different framework, by a party who may not be a registered company auditor, and it does not satisfy the Corporations Act assurance requirement. It may still reduce work, because it evidences that a controlled process existed.
They accept an ISO-derived inventory re-presented into scopes with a documented and tested mapping, and boundary decisions re-confirmed against the chosen GHG Protocol consolidation approach. They reject an ISO-structured disclosure presented without scope classification, a basis of preparation citing ISO 14064-1 as the measurement basis for an AASB S2 disclosure, and an ISO verification statement offered in place of statutory assurance.
Commonly confused with
The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, which is the standard AASB S2 actually requires. Also confused with ISO 14001, which is an environmental management system standard and contains no emissions quantification requirements at all: the two are regularly conflated in tender documents. And confused with ISO 14064-3, which is the verification part of the same series and is a separate standard about assurance rather than measurement.
Sources
1
ISO 14064-1:2018 Greenhouse gases: Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level
ISO
2
3
Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (2004 revised edition)
GHG Protocol
Review status
Review required
Last reviewed
15 September 2026
Editorial pass, unsigned
Reviewer required
Carbon accounting specialist and registered company auditor
Next scheduled review
1 July 2027
Part of
Cluster D, Emissions accounting and measurement
49 terms from the head term carbon accounting down to individual Scope 3 categories and the mechanics of factors, boundaries and data quality. The largest cluster in the glossary.
Related terms
The measurement basis AASB S2 actually names
The process both frameworks describe
The artefact both frameworks produce, structured differently
Related questions
Where do Australian emission factors come from?
−
The National Greenhouse Accounts Factors, published each year by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. They give Scope 1 factors by fuel and Scope 2 electricity factors by state and territory. NGER-registered corporations must use NGER measurement methods for their NGER reporting.
We report under NGER. Does that automatically capture us?
+
It can. If you are a corporation registered under the NGER Act and your Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are at or above the 50,000 tonne CO2-e publication threshold, you are in Group 1. Every other registered NGER corporation sits in Group 2, regardless of size.
Other terms in this cluster
ISO 14064-1