A green loan GHG baseline is the first thing a sustainability-linked credit line asks for, and it is rarely explained. Banks, often with an international financial institution behind them, increasingly require a greenhouse-gas baseline at application and an annual update for as long as the loan runs.
What a green loan GHG baseline contains
A full-year inventory of Scope 1 and Scope 2, with Scope 3 business travel and employee commuting added if the template asks for them. They want to know three things: the size of the number, the method behind it, and whether you can produce the same number again next year.
What to send
- The inventory report, with a stated boundary that lists every facility included.
- The methodology: the GHG Protocol, a location-based Scope 2 method, and the source of the emission factors.
- The evidence, kept ready, because a bank's reviewer may sample records.
If the bank has its own template, fill it from a CSV export instead of retyping figures, and keep the exported file with the report.
Why year two matters more than year one
The first year becomes your baseline, the reference every later year is compared against. That only works if the method does not change. A baseline built on one set of factors and compared to a year built on another tells the bank nothing about whether your emissions moved.
This is the practical reason to keep factor versions: when a number changes, it can be explained as a change in activity or a change in factor, never both at once.
The mistakes that cost a loan review
- A facility left out of the boundary and not mentioned.
- Estimated figures presented as measured ones.
- A year-two figure that cannot be reconciled to the year-one method.
The practical sequence is in how to answer an emissions data request, and the lender's side is on the green lending page. Before you send anything, run the GHG inventory checklist.