E-ledgers Carbon Accounting

In prior publications, we introduced a global system of interconnected E-ledgers that produces—in as close to real time as practicable—accurate, comparable, and verifiable accounts of the cradle-to-gate (net) greenhouse gas emissions in any product or service that transacts in the economy. In this paper, we delve more deeply into the accounting infrastructure required for the E-ledgers system, including the specific journal entries for recording E-liabilities and E-assets. We explain how the E-ledgers of different entities in the economy articulate with each other and how they connect with jurisdictional E-ledgers that record emissions from end consumers. These entity and jurisdictional E-ledgers can be aggregated into a geological master ledger that tracks anthropogenic GHG emissions and removals, as debits and credits, to a geological carbon equity account. We also provide summary insights from computational technology and pilot studies to guide rapid and cost-effective E-ledgers deployment at scale.

This paper was accepted by Shiva Rajgopal, accounting.

Funding: Funding for R. S. Kaplan’s research was provided by Harvard Business School. K. Ramanna receives a salary from Oxford University. The authors are co-founders of E-ledgers Institute, a nonprofit organization, which seeks to implement the E-ledgers carbon accounting method in practice.