Mexico National Emissions Registry (RENE)

What the RENE is

The General Law on Climate Change (Ley General de Cambio Climático), published on June 6, 2012, requires SEMARNAT, Mexico's environment ministry, to build the registry of emissions from fixed and mobile sources subject to reporting and to publish it in aggregate. It leaves to the regulation the task of identifying those sources by sector, subsector and activity, and of setting the gases, thresholds, calculation methodologies and the monitoring, reporting and verification system¹.

That regulation was published on October 28, 2014². The registry has two parts: the emissions reported by obligated facilities and a section where mitigation or emission reduction projects can be registered, with a validation opinion from an accredited and approved body¹².

Who must report to the RENE

A facility reports when it meets two conditions at once²:

• It is in a listed sector. Articles 3 and 4 of the regulation list the sectors, subsectors and activities.
• It reaches the threshold. The annual sum of its direct and indirect emissions is equal to or above 25,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, counting all its fixed and mobile sources.

Direct emissions come from your fixed sources and from the owned or leased vehicles you use in your activity; vehicles of a carrier that provides you a transport service do not count as leased. Indirect emissions are generated outside your facility by the electricity and thermal energy you consume².

Which gases and compounds are reported

The regulation requires each one to be reported in tonnes per year and in its equivalent in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent²:

• Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
• Black carbon or soot.
• Chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.
• Sulphur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride.
• Halogenated ethers, halocarbons and mixtures of all of the above.
• Others determined by the IPCC that SEMARNAT publishes as reportable in the Official Gazette (Diario Oficial de la Federación).

Each gas is converted to CO₂ equivalent with the global warming potentials set by a SEMARNAT agreement, consistent with the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report³. The list includes the seven Kyoto Protocol gases and adds others, such as black carbon.

How to report: the Annual Operating Report (COA)

The RENE report is filed in the Annual Operating Report (COA), the same instrument SEMARNAT uses to collect facilities' pollutant emissions and transfers². Greenhouse gases go in its section VI⁴.

1. 01

   Identify your sources

   List your fixed and mobile sources by activity, and your electricity and thermal energy consumption².

2. 02

   Calculate your emissions

   With the regulation's methodologies: emission factors or mass balance depending on the activity, and direct measurement where SEMARNAT requires it. SEMARNAT publishes a calculator and each year's electricity emission factor²³.

3. 03

   File the COA

   Between March 1 and June 30, with emissions from January 1 to December 31 of the previous year, by gas or compound².

4. 04

   Answer the review

   SEMARNAT has 20 business days to review the report and may ask you, once, to complete or clarify data within up to 15 business days. If you do not answer, the greenhouse gas report is deemed not filed².

5. 05

   Keep the records

   Keep the information, data and calculations behind each report for 5 years from the date SEMARNAT received the COA².

If you file the COA only for your greenhouse gases, it asks for your legal name, tax ID (RFC), NAICS activity code, legal representative, address, period and emissions by gas. For fixed sources it adds fuel consumed and location; for mobile sources, the number and type of units and their fuel².

Deadlines and verification

The opinion is issued by an accredited and approved body, which reviews the emissions of the year before the report². SEMARNAT publishes the list of accredited and approved verification and validation bodies³. If the body finds errors from earlier years, it tells you so you can file the correction notice².

What happens if you do not report

PROFEPA can inspect your facility to check the consistency of your reports and how you applied the methodologies; if it requests the information, you have up to 15 business days to deliver it². An error you find before an inspection is corrected with a written notice to SEMARNAT, with your COA number, the error and the correct figure².

Where scrap and recycling fit

The RENE records your facility's emissions: those from your sources and those from the energy you consume². What happens to your scrap after it leaves your plant takes place at other people's sources, so it fits neither of those two definitions.

• In your corporate inventory. Under the GHG Protocol, waste you send for recycling goes in scope 3, category 5⁶. See scope 3: waste and recycling and carbon footprint.
• Avoided emissions, separately. What recycling avoids is not included in or deducted from scope 3; it is reported separately, with evidence and methodology⁶.
• Recyclers may report too. The regulation lists basic iron and steel, metallurgy and waste recycling, collection and transport activities; they report if they reach the threshold².
• Registering reductions is a different procedure. The mitigation projects section requires a validation opinion from an accredited and approved body².

Bluegreen issues a certificate for each lot, with a folio that can be verified online, stating the lot's net avoided CO₂e. It is not a carbon credit and cannot be sold or transferred. See how it is calculated and what the recycling certificate is.