The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme (GGAS) imposes mandatory greenhouse gas benchmarks on all holders of NSW electricity retail licenses, electricity generators prescribed by the regulations that supply directly to retail customers, and market customers which take their electricity supply directly from the National Electricity Market (NEM) and have an electricity load that is classified as a market load with the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO). These are mandatory benchmark participants.

GGAS also allows customers with electricity loads greater than 100 GWh (where at least one site consumes 50 GWh pa) or people carrying out State significant development as designated by the Minister for Planning under the NSW planning legislation, to elect to manage their own greenhouse gas benchmarks. These are elective benchmark participants.

GGAS allows for the creation of abatement certificates by accredited abatement certificate providers who carry out one or more of the following abatement activities:

• Low-emission generation of electricity and improved generator efficiency (Generation)
• Those activities that result in reduced consumption of electricity, including on-site electricity generation (Demand Side Abatement)
• The capture of carbon from the atmosphere in forests (Carbon Sequestration)
• Those activities carried out by elective participants that reduce on-site emissions not directly related to electricity consumption (Large User Abatement)

GGAS also includes a panel of approved auditors (Audit Panel Members) to conduct investigations associated with accreditations and are certified according to their expertise under specific Rules (ie. Generation, Demand Side Abatement, Large User and Carbon Sequestration). The panel is also certified to conduct pre- and post-registration audits of abatement certificate creation and audits of annual compliance benchmark statements.