SIG supported ICF International in creating greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting frameworks for Green Prosperity Projects in Indonesia which were financed under the Millennium Challenge Corporation of USAID. In close collaboration with ICF staff, SIG created project specific GHG accounting protocols for 65 projects. GHG emission reductions projects across Indonesia; these projects carried out social/agroforestry practices, restored peatlands, reduced deforestation and land degradation, mitigated wildfires, and improved biomass (palm oil mill effluent)-based power generation.
Project Experts first surveyed relevant literature on GHG accounting methodologies (based on MCA-I approved criteria) and fully documented methodological choices. The Experts then compiled the relevant publicly available methodology reports, studies, identified data gaps that needed to be filled in order to carry out the Project, and also assessed whether or not MCA-I grantees and implementers were providing sufficient data to estimate GHG emissions.
Once this was done, SIG and ICF documented downstream and secondary GHG emissions issues that were not necessarily addressed in existing methodology, such as emissions from fertilizer production and soil runoff. They provided options for modeling emissions for projects that crossed sectors and project types (i.e. social forestry projects that also reduced peatland degradation, or improved biomass energy projects that also worked on reforestation).
Finally, the Experts recommended options for GHG accounting, reviewed the ICF-developed GHG Calculation Tool Templates for each of the project types, pilot tested the tools, developed lists of additional data needs for each project type, proposed options for the best ways of collecting that data, did quality control of data collection forms and data collected, and finally reviewed emissions reductions for each of the types of projects. The final report produced by SIG for this project found that over the 65 different projects analyzed, the total potential GHG emission reductions would be close to one million tonnes CO2e per year.
