Designing regulator-grade methane reporting system
For Canadian energy leaders, methane and emissions reporting is no longer a compliance workstream that sits in sustainability. It is becoming a performance system that shapes how assets are operated, maintained, audited, and improved.
The question behind this piece
Many Canadian energy organizations still treat emissions reporting as a periodic exercise: calculate, disclose, move on. But methane performance is now scrutinized by regulators, investors, and communities, and measurement credibility is becoming as important as the number itself. How do leaders turn methane and emissions reporting into a management system with clear accountability, auditability, and an execution cadence?
Why this matters now
Methane is moving up the leadership agenda because it is high-impact and increasingly measurable. Global methane emissions drive about 30% of observed warming to date.
The Government of Canada source reports that in 2023, oil and gas represented 48% of Canada’s methane emissions, ahead of agriculture (28%) and waste (19%). When nearly half of national methane is tied to one sector, “credibility” becomes a core operating requirement.
Regulatory and assurance expectations are tightening. Canada has set a target to reduce oil and gas methane emissions by 75% below 2012 levels by 2030, and the Government of Canada states the enhanced methane regulations finalized in December 2025 are estimated to reduce oil and gas methane by 72% below 2012 levels by 2030. Whether your driver is regulation, investor requirements, or public reporting, executives increasingly need to show how numbers were produced, what assumptions were used, and what evidence supports reduction claims.
If you cannot trace it from field activity to a number, it will not survive the regulator scrutiny.
Our perspective
Treat methane performance like safety or reliability: define standards, instrument the work, assign accountability, and run a cadence that drives continuous improvement. The goal is a system that connects field activity to measurable outcomes, supported by controls that survive audit.
Define the methane performance model in plain language.
Clarify the key emission sources, where reduction is actually achievable, and what “good” looks like in the field. Then build a KPI tree that links the top-line outcome to controllable drivers. Keep it small enough to run weekly. Typical drivers include detection coverage, time-to-repair, repeat leak rate, equipment performance, and maintenance compliance.
Build measurement as a product, not a spreadsheet.
A credible measurement system includes standardized methods, documented assumptions, quality checks, and repeatable workflows. Leaders should be able to answer: what is measured directly, what is estimated, what is sampled, and how uncertainty is handled. This is not only for auditors. It is how the organization learns what works and scales it.
Make accountability operational and explicit.
Assign owners at the level where work happens:
- Asset leaders own performance outcomes and resourcing.
- Field teams own execution measures like coverage and time-to-repair.
- A central function owns standards, methods, QA, and change control.
- Finance and strategy partners own abatement ROI logic and capital gating.
Connect reporting to execution planning.
Methane work should appear in the same planning system as maintenance and reliability, with clear work orders, scheduling, and escalation paths when targets are missed. The organizations that improve fastest treat methane interventions as planned operations.
Design auditability into the workflow.
A defensible model includes:
- Evidence capture standards (what proof is required for each intervention).
- A controlled repository linking measurements, work orders, and outcomes.
- A decision log for methodology changes and exceptions.
- Routine internal reviews that test the evidence trail before external audits do.
Run abatement ROI like a portfolio, not a narrative.
Prioritize actions based on measurable impact and feasibility, not what is easiest to report. Build a simple intervention portfolio view with expected reduction, confidence level, cost, operational disruption, and payback logic. Use it to make investment decisions, and to explain tradeoffs clearly.
A practical starting point is a 90-day methane performance build:
- Establish the KPI tree and reporting standards.
- Implement a minimum evidence model for the top emission sources.
- Integrate methane work into planning and maintenance routines.
- Launch a weekly performance cadence that includes operational leaders.
- Produce a first audit-ready evidence package, then refine based on findings.
Compliance becomes performance when emissions data is governed and used to drive weekly operational decisions.
At Strathen Group, we can help you build a methane performance operating system with robust governance setup (decision rights, cadence, metrics). In 4–6 weeks, we can help leaders move from reporting to control by installing a practical operating system for methane performance. The work aligns the KPI structure to controllable drivers, clarifies measurement and evidence expectations, and sets an executive-ready cadence with clear decision rights and escalation so performance improves week to week, not just on paper. If you want methane reporting to become a performance lever in your organization, we should talk about your KPI tree, evidence model, and operating cadence.
