Written by: Zeroe Admin
An Inventory Management Plan (IMP) describes an organization's process for completing a high-quality, corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory. Organizations use an IMP to institutionalize a process for collecting, calculating, and maintaining GHG data.
The seven major sections of an IMP are:
Organization Information: organization name, address, and inventory contact information.
Boundary Conditions: organizational and operational boundary descriptions.
Emissions Quantification: quantification methodologies and emission factors.
Data Management: data sources, collection process, and quality assurance.
Base Year: base year adjustments for structural and methodology changes.
Management Tools: roles and responsibilities, training, and file maintenance.
Auditing & Verification: auditing, management review, and corrective action.
Organizations may choose to have a single IMP document that addresses all of the elements that go into developing their corporate inventory, or they might have an equivalent collection of documents with procedures and other relevant information.
An inventory program framework
A practical framework is needed to help companies conceptualize and design a quality management system and to help plan for future improvements. This framework focuses on the following institutional, managerial, and technical components of an inventory:
METHODS: These are the technical aspects of inventory preparation. Companies should select or develop methodologies for estimating emissions that accurately represent the characteristics of their source categories. The GHG Protocol provides many default methods and calculation tools to help with this effort. The design of an inventory program and quality management system should provide for the selection, application, and updating of inventory methodologies as new research becomes available, changes are made to business operations, or the importance of inventory reporting is elevated. DATA: This is the basic information on activity levels, emission factors, processes, and operations. Although methodologies need to be appropriately rigorous and detailed, data quality is more important. No methodology can compensate for poor quality input data. The design of a corporate inventory program should facilitate the collection of high quality inventory data and the maintenance and improvement of collection procedures. INVENTORY PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS: These are the institutional, managerial, and technical procedures for preparing GHG inventories. They include the team and processes charged with the goal of producing a high quality inventory. To streamline GHG inventory quality management, these processes and systems may be integrated, where appropriate, with other corporate processes related to quality. DOCUMENTATION: This is the record of methods, data, processes, systems, assumptions, and estimates used to prepare an inventory. It includes everything employees need to prepare and improve a company’s inventory. Since estimating GHG emissions is inherently technical (involving engineering and science), high quality, transparent documentation is particularly important to credibility. If information is not credible, or fails to be effectively communicated to either internal or external stakeholders, it will not have value. Companies should seek to ensure the quality of these components at every level of their inventory design.
Best Practice to Maintain IMP
In addition, EPA has developed the following two resources to help organizations develop a high-quality IMP:
GHG Inventory Management Plan Checklist (docx) The GHG IMP Checklist outlines the components that should be included in a high-quality IMP. It can be used as a guide for creating an IMP or pulling together existing documents.
Simplified Inventory Management Plan Form (doc) This form provides a template for an organization to document its inventory development process. It is also one of several EPA resources as part of its Inventory Guidance for Low Emitters.