"We Can't Verify a Black Box" — What 22 Years of GHG Verification Reveals | Derek Markolf

Derek Markolf spent 22 years at LRQA leading GHG verifications across manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and nearly every other sector. Now he runs his independent verification practice while slow-traveling the world with his wife — conducting verifications remotely from wherever they happen to be living that month. In this conversation, Derek shares what two decades of looking inside other organizations' GHG inventories actually teaches you — the patterns that show up everywhere, the mistakes that keep getting made, and the emerging issues that practitioners need to get ahead of right now. We cover: → Why the smallest sources are the biggest pain — and why this surprises first-time reporters every time → The "levers" problem: why spend-based and industry-average data removes your ability to show real emissions reductions → Base year recalculation — the most under-enforced GHG Protocol requirement, and why verifiers are giving it a lot more attention now that companies are nearing their target years → What inventory management plans need to contain to survive staff turnover → Why AI-assisted tools are creating a new challenge for verifiers: "We can't verify a black box" → What separates organizations that build solid, verification-ready inventories from those that struggle — and why it almost always starts with leadership commitment.   🎙️ Carbon Management & Accounting Podcast | New episodes every other Tuesday Sponsored by North Star Carbon & Impact — northstarcarbon.com