Inventory Management Plan Guidance

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:

1. Organization Information: organization name, address, and inventory contact information.
2. Boundary Conditions: organizational and operational boundary descriptions.
3. Emissions Quantification: quantification methodologies and emission factors.
4. Data Management: data sources, collection process, and quality assurance.
5. Base Year: base year adjustments for structural and methodology changes.
6. Management Tools: roles and responsibilities, training, and file maintenance.
7. 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.

Inventory Management Plan Resources

Chapter 7 of the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (Managing Inventory Quality) (pdf) contains more information about developing and maintaining an IMP.

In addition, EPA has developed the following two resources to help organizations develop a high-quality IMP:

• GHG Inventory Management Plan Checklist (docx) (40.71 KB) 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) (829.5 KB, August 2020) provides a template for an organization to document its inventory development process.