Submission on methane accounting standards under NGERS legislation
13 May 2026
Investors rely on reported emissions data to provide an accurate picture of companies’ emissions and transition risk, to assess current and prospective investments as well as the risk to asset value.
Methane emissions are generally under-reported and IGCC strongly supports more accurate accounting and reporting of methane emissions as essential to give greater clarity to investors. This will assist in making alternative, low to zero emissions investments more attractive, enabling more finance to be deployed towards prospective green industries.
IGCC supports many of the changes contemplated in this consultation draft and provides some further suggestions to strengthen NGER scheme operation that will in turn support climate-aligned innovation and investment.
We recommend that DCCEEW:
- Consider further improvements to more accurate methane emissions accounting, noting previous perverse outcomes where facilities received less ambitious baselines because of the switch to different measurement methods.
- Take measures to ameliorate facility misidentification of vented methane as flared methane.
- Consider reporting methane on both a 100-year and 20-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) because of its near-term warming impact compared to carbon dioxide.
- Recognise the physical behaviour of gas blends injected into gas networks, which may flow to parts of the system that should electrify, making market-based certificate schemes less effective in driving efficient gas decarbonisation in the reticulated system.
Read the full submission.