Cutting methane from oil and gas is one of the fastest ways to slow near-term warming. Methane traps more than 80 times as much heat as CO₂ over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. The sector emits roughly 80 million tonnes of it every year, and about three-quarters could be cut with technologies and practices that exist today, much of it at under $50 per tonne of CO₂e.
The solutions exist and the economics work. So why isn’t action happening at scale?
Part of the answer sits with the companies that buy natural gas or rely on it in their supply chains. Many want to act: by sourcing gas with verifiably lower methane intensity, using supplier-specific emissions data, or investing in repairing leaks upstream. But they have had no consistent, credible way to account for that action.
Standard inventory methods typically rely on regional or basin-level average emission factors for upstream natural gas, rather than data that reflects the specific production assets and supply chains providing the gas. This can obscure significant variation in methane intensity: different production practices, infrastructure, and transportation systems can result in materially different emissions, with some estimates varying by an order of magnitude or more. When these differences are not reflected in the inventory, it becomes difficult to demonstrate that choosing a lower-emissions source or investing in emissions reductions actually changes a company’s reported footprint, making the value of that investment harder to measure, report, and defend.
That could be about to change, and there’s a window right now to shape how.
What’s out for consultation
Two groups have released complimentary draft guidance on accounting for lower-emissions natural gas, and both are requesting feedback.
RMI, working with WSP, has published the Emissions Accounting Framework: attributional accounting guidance for lower-emissions oil and gas supply. Attributional accounting is the standard method behind a company’s greenhouse gas inventory: it tallies the emissions linked to what the company buys and uses. The framework
It sets out how companies can reflect the actual emissions profile of the gas they buy in their Scope 3 inventories, with several tracking and accounting pathways to fit different contexts.
Relae (formerly Carbon Direct) and Green Strategies have published two companion documents on impact accounting, which measures the emissions reductions a buyer’s action delivers:
- Impact Accounting for the Natural Gas Supply Chain: Guidance for Buyers, a methodology for calculating and reporting reductions from buyer actions.
- Criteria for Impact-Based Action in Lower-Emissions Natural Gas, quality criteria for judging whether a procurement or investment is credible enough to claim.
How the pieces fit
Together, the drafts answer three questions a company needs settled before it can move:
- What number goes in my inventory? Attributional accounting.
- What difference did my action make? Impact accounting.
- Is that action good enough to stand behind? Quality criteria and guardrails.
Rather than a single standard, the result is a connected, modular suite. Attributional and impact accounting are complementary, not competing: one gives companies a more accurate footprint, the other lets them demonstrate the real-world, additional reductions their capital delivers.
The authors are also clear about what this work is not. It is not intended to justify expanded use of oil and gas or to replace the transition to cleaner alternatives. Lower-emissions gas makes sense only where no feasible alternative exists.
Why your input matters
Accounting rules shape markets. If the bar is set too low, claims won’t hold up to scrutiny. If it is set beyond the reach of market realities, the market for lower-emissions gas may never get off the ground, leaving cheap, fast methane cuts on the table.
Getting that balance right needs input from the people who will actually use this guidance:
- Direct and indirect buyers of natural gas, and companies considering lower-emissions supply
- Supply chain actors offering, or planning to offer, products built on differentiated gas
- Technical experts, industry associations and standards bodies
- NGOs, coalitions and civil society
- Digital providers working on chain-of-custody solutions
The drafts are open now, and final versions follow soon after: Relae and Green Strategies plan to publish in November 2026, and RMI in the first half of 2027. This is the moment to make sure the guidance is robust, credible and workable in practice.
How to take part
The deadline for all three documents is October 31 but the processes differ.
| Guidance | Developed by | Comments due | How to respond |
| Criteria for Impact-Based Action in Lower-Emissions Natural Gas | Relae and Green Strategies | October 31, 2026 | Online survey, or email upstream.gas.consultation@relae.co |
| Impact Accounting for the Natural Gas Supply Chain: Guidance for Buyers | Relae and Green Strategies | October 31, 2026 | Online survey, or email patrick@greenstrategies.com |
| Emissions Accounting Framework | RMI and WSP | October 31, 2026 | Download the response form from RMI’s page and email it to mpeltier@rmi.org |
All responses are optional by section, so you can comment on as much or as little as is relevant to you. Note that marked-up PDFs and inline comments aren’t accepted for the Relae and Green Strategies documents.
Fast, low-cost methane cuts are within reach. Clear, credible accounting is one of the things standing between corporate willingness and capital at scale. Add your voice before the window closes.
Learn more about why this matters on our Lower-Emission Natural Gas Investment page.