The standard specifies how organizations develop auditable GHG inventories, where an inventory is defined as the “sum of an organization’s GHG sources and sinks ”.

ISO designed the standard for any organization requiring tools and guidance on evaluating and reporting GHG emissions. Specifically, ISO 14064-1 describes how an organization can create a list of sources and sinks by first considering its boundaries; if a GHG emission is within the company boundaries, then the company has complete control of these emissions.