Call for input to co-create consistent threshold for high-quality carbon credits

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market is launching a public consultation on its draft Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), which propose fundamental, interlinked criteria for high-quality carbon credits that create real, verifiable climate impact, based on solid science and best practice, with social and environmental safeguards.

The draft CCPs, and accompanying draft Assessment Framework, are designed to build a widely-shared understanding of what high integrity means for carbon-crediting programs and credit types in a framework that is workable and establishes a clear pathway for continual improvement.

High integrity carbon credits are an important complementary tool to channel private capital efficiently towards the most impactful, cost-effective climate mitigation activities worldwide.

Annette Nazareth Integrity Council Chair, a former Commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said: “The voluntary carbon market exists to accelerate a just transition to 1.5 degrees. That’s why, in designing an effective market that can deliver genuine climate impact at speed and scale, we need to start with integrity.”

An efficient voluntary carbon market could also help deliver critical funding to developing countries and to Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs), who play a key role in the stewardship of forests, biodiversity and other local and global ecosystem services[1]. IPLCs manage around 40% of the planet’s remaining ecologically intact landscapes.[2]

By establishing a global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits, the CCPs can pave the way for the development of spot and futures markets in carbon credits. These would be highly liquid, easily scalable, and help create a transparent price signal, enabling better price risk management.

Voluntary Carbon Market could cut 2 billion tonnes of emissions each year by 2030.

The Integrity Council is an independent governance body for the voluntary carbon market. It was set up in September 2021 in response to the final recommendations of the Taskforce on Scaling the Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM), an initiative backed by more than 250 organisations.

The Integrity Council is holding a full, open public consultation on three key elements:

• Draft CCPs, designed to capture the commonly-accepted fundamental elements of high-integrity carbon credits that create real, additional and verifiable climate impact;
• Draft Assessment Framework, which sets out proposed criteria the Integrity Council will use to evaluate whether carbon credits and carbon-crediting programmes meet the CCP standard;
• Draft Assessment Procedure, which sets out a proposed process for approving carbon-crediting programmes and credit types as CCP-eligible, how eligible carbon credits will be tagged, and how the Integrity Council will continue to facilitate the continual development of the voluntary carbon market.

Consultation is a vital part of the Integrity Council’s development process. The proposals set out in the draft CCPs and Assessment Framework do not represent an already-formed consensus view by the Integrity Council.

The draft CCPs and Assessment Framework have been developed by the Integrity Council based on recommendations from the Expert Panel, and in dialogue with technical experts from across the VCM.

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