The Nature Conservancy investigated the appropriateness of the voluntary carbon market to finance HFLD conservation in this report released in August 2024. It interviewed experts to reveal some compatibility concerns, with many participants suggesting that issues in REDD+ should be resolved before turning to HFLD. It also spoke of risks within the VCM that could prevent it from being an appropriate mechanism for HFLD.
For this study, the researchers focused on the twenty companies retiring the most offsets from the voluntary carbon market between 2020 and 2023. Published in Nature Communications in August 2024, the study questioned whether their offsets could be considered high quality. NOTE: The ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles set a framework to assess quality, signalling a move to higher standards across the market. This study concluded that many credits are low quality and that 87% are unlikely to create additional emission reductions.
Insurance company, Gallagher, surveyed 100 sustainability business leaders with more than 250 employees. It found that nearly two-thirds will meet their net zero goals by purchasing carbon credits and that they are willing to spend an average of £20 million on carbon credit solutions. This study was published in August 2024.
In this report, David Antonioli, the founding CEO of Verra, sets out his alternative vision for the voluntary carbon market. Published by Transition Finance in July 2024, he argues that carbon finance could be a transition tool. If projects rethought the concept of additionality, they could set a point at which carbon revenue is no longer needed for their project the sustain itself. This, he suggests, is needed to catalyse a just transition to a low-carbon economy.
This guidance is an update on Microsoft and Carbon Direct’s 2021 criteria for high-quality carbon dioxide removal. Published in July 2024, it recommends that project developers share a percentage of project revenue with local people and community partners and that the form these payments take should be agreed upon during project set-up. It discusses both nature and tech-based removals.
This peer-reviewed critique of science-based targets highlights specific discussions around removal and carbon credits. Published in Communications Earth & Environment in July 2024, it says that companies condense complex climate science to underpin their net zero targets and argues that ‘a narrow conceptualisation of science to guide and justify targets for individual companies or countries is misleading’. NOTE: Corporates should refer to guidance on target setting.
Plan Vivo Foundation, goodcarbon and Blue Marine Foundation have collaborated to help us identify the core principles of high integrity in the biodiversity credit market. It surveyed companies of varying sizes, sectors and geographies to understand their perspectives and interest in the biodiversity credit market. Published in July 2024, the results revealed that half of all respondents are closely following developments in the biodiversity markets due to their nature and climate commitments.
This is a statement of a literature review commissioned by the SBTi to assess the effectiveness of corporate carbon credit use. Published in July 2024, it has been criticised for its research question that positions carbon credit use as an alternative, rather than an addition, to direct emission reduction from the value chain. NOTE: The paper itself states that there is not enough literature available to credibly answer its research question, and there have been questions about whether that was the right question to ask.
This report, published in July 2024, synthesises the SBTi’s research into the effectiveness of environmental attribute certificates. As the first of three parts, this edition focuses on carbon credits. It analysed 406 pieces of evidence to conclude that carbon credits can be ineffective for delivering mitigation outcomes and that there could be clear risks to the corporate use of carbon credits for offsetting. NOTE: This is in contrast to the findings of other studies.
In this paper, the SBTi considers options for changing its rules about carbon credit use for Scope 3 emission reduction target setting. Published in July 2024, it outlines the limitations and potential routes forward that could help corporates mitigate polluting emissions in their supply chains. NOTE: In 2024, the SBTi’s indecision over Scope 3 emissions prompted debate in the VCM.