"GHG Protocol or ISO 14064?" is one of the questions that comes up most when a company starts measuring, and it is nearly always framed as a choice. In practice there is little to choose. Both measure the same thing with the same calculation and differ in how they sort the result. In Chile you will end up using both.
If you already know the scopes and only need the conversion, scroll down to the equivalence table.
What they share
Both start from the same operation: activity data times an emission factor. And they agree on what surrounds that calculation:
- The same seven gases, expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
- The same five principles: relevance, completeness, consistency, accuracy and transparency.
- The same approaches to setting organizational boundaries: control or equity share.
- A base year against which later years are compared.
If your data and factors are sound, the total is the same under either one.
GHG Protocol: three scopes
It is the set of greenhouse gas accounting standards most widely used by companies. It is developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Three documents matter for an organization. The Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard defines how to build the inventory: boundaries, scopes, base year and reporting. The Scope 2 Guidance defines how to account for purchased electricity, with a location-based method and a market-based one. The Corporate Value Chain Standard splits Scope 3 into 15 categories.
The scopes are these:
- Scope 1. Direct emissions from sources the organization owns or controls: fuel in boilers and its own vehicles, industrial processes, refrigerant leaks.
- Scope 2. Indirect emissions from the electricity, steam, heat or cooling the organization buys and consumes.
- Scope 3. All other indirect emissions in the value chain, upstream and downstream.
ISO 14064: six categories
It is a family of three standards. ISO 14064-1:2018 covers the quantification and reporting of an organization's emissions and removals, and is the one used for a corporate footprint. ISO 14064-2:2019 deals with reductions or removals at the project level. ISO 14064-3:2019 is the verification and validation standard, the one the verifier follows.
Chile adopted the first one as NCh-ISO 14064-1:2019.
ISO 14064-1:2018 does not use scopes. It sorts the inventory into six categories:
- Direct emissions and removals.
- Indirect emissions from imported energy.
- Indirect emissions from transportation.
- Indirect emissions from products used by the organization.
- Indirect emissions associated with the use of the organization's products.
- Indirect emissions from other sources.
Where they part ways
| Topic | GHG Protocol | ISO 14064-1:2018 |
|---|---|---|
| How emissions are sorted | Three scopes, and 15 categories within Scope 3 | Six categories |
| Indirect emissions | Scope 2 required. Scope 3 optional in the Corporate Standard | Those that are significant under criteria the organization defines |
| Level of detail | Extensive calculation guidance, category by category | Shorter requirements. The method is left to the organization, which must justify it |
| Uncertainty | Recommended | Assessment required |
| Report | List of required and optional contents | Greenhouse gas report with defined minimum content |
| Verification | Optional, with no standard of its own | Optional. If done, it follows ISO 14064-3:2019 |
The second row is the one that takes the most work. Under ISO you have to write down your significance criteria and be able to defend them, and a verifier will ask to see them.
A note on "ISO 14064 certification", a phrase that comes up often: it does not exist as a management system certificate. What you obtain is a verification statement, issued by an independent third party that reviews the inventory under ISO 14064-3:2019.
The equivalence table
This is the equivalence the HuellaChile Program publishes for those who calculate with the GHG Protocol and report in ISO format.
| ISO 14064-1 | GHG Protocol |
|---|---|
| Category 1. Direct emissions | Scope 1 |
| Category 2. Imported energy | Scope 2 |
| Category 3. Transportation | Scope 3, categories 4 (upstream transportation), 6 (business travel), 7 (employee commuting) and 9 (downstream transportation) |
| Category 4. Products used by the organization | Scope 3, categories 1 (purchased goods and services), 2 (capital goods), 3 (fuel- and energy-related activities), 5 (waste) and 8 (upstream leased assets) |
| Category 5. Use of the organization's products | Scope 3, categories 10 (processing of sold products), 11 (use of sold products), 12 (end of life of sold products), 13 (downstream leased assets), 14 (franchises) and 15 (investments) |
| Category 6. Other sources | Whatever does not fit above |
The conversion is only comfortable in one direction. If you store each emission with its Scope 3 category, grouping it into ISO categories is straightforward. The reverse is harder: a figure stored only as "Category 4" has already lost the detail needed to get back to the 15.
Which one you will be asked for in Chile
The HuellaChile Program uses NCh-ISO 14064-1:2019 as its official methodology. Its platform accepts results from your own GHG Protocol calculator, entered according to the table above. We cover it in the Programa Huella Chile guide.
Sustainability-related financial reporting goes the other way. IFRS S2 asks for emissions measured under the 2004 GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. How that applies in Chile is in the NCG 461 and NCG 519 guide.
Your customers ask by scope too. Supplier questionnaires and platforms such as CDP want Scopes 1, 2 and 3.
And the verifier works under ISO 14064-3:2019, whichever format you use.
That is why we recommend calculating once, at the level of the 15 categories, and presenting the result in the format each recipient asks for.
Toward 2028, a single standard
In September 2025 ISO and the GHG Protocol announced a partnership to develop standards together. The plan the GHG Protocol published on July 29, 2026 brings the Corporate Standard, Scope 2, Scope 3 and ISO 14064-1 into one standard, under both organizations' logos.
The consolidated draft would go to public consultation in the second quarter of 2027, and publication is estimated for the fourth quarter of 2028. Those are the plan's own estimates.
Nothing changes in the meantime. The GHG Protocol states that its existing standards stay in effect until it communicates otherwise.
Where Grumbic fits
Grumbic calculates the footprint from your invoices and links every figure to the document it came from. The report follows the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1, so you do not have to pick one at the start.
See the platform or talk to us.
Sources
Information reviewed on October 10, 2026.
- GHG Protocol Corporate Standard
- GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance
- GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
- ISO 14064-1:2018
- ISO 14064-3:2019
- Equivalence between the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1, HuellaChile Program, February 2025 (in Spanish)
- GHG Protocol standards update process
- Consolidated Standard Development Plan, July 29, 2026
