The UK government shared six principles for voluntary carbon and nature markets in November 2024. This policy paper encourages entities to use credits in addition to ambitious actions within value chains and sets out criteria to help identify high-integrity credits. The principles state that corporates should measure and disclose the planned use of credits as part of sustainability reporting and make accurate green claims using appropriate terminology.
The ICVCM has approved three REDD+ methodologies. Announced in November 2024, this paves the way for CCP-labelled REDD+ credits which are expected to be issued in 2025. The following methodologies have been approved: (ART) The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) v2.0, TREES Crediting Level; (VCS) VM0048 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation v1.0; and
(VCS) Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) Framework v4.1. Millions of REDD+ carbon credits could be issued from these methodologies.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) released a guide to help financial institutions disclose climate and nature-related risk and risk management strategies. Published in September 2024, this guide offers practical steps for financial institutions to follow and explains the importance of nature in the context of net zero plans.
In September 2023, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) published a guide to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) for businesses. It clarifies the business case for investing in nature-based and tech-based forms of CDR and shares principles for investing in these solutions. It also includes an interactive tool to help businesses assess CDR solutions in line with the framework outlined by WBCSD.
Sylvera’s guide is extremely relevant to corporates looking to learn about the options available in the voluntary carbon market. It covers how to conduct carbon credit due diligence and explains the different project types. It covers the benefits of each credit type and explains how corporates can avoid some of the biggest risks of the market.
The SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard is the world’s first framework for corporate net-zero target setting in line with climate science. This is a key resource for corporates developing their emission reduction strategies. The Standard covers near-term and long-term targets; residual emissions and beyond value chain mitigation.
Produced by the GHG Management Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute, this is a website intended to promote the potential of carbon markets and explain their functioning to corporates. It produces research on an ongoing basis to inform policymakers and the general public about both voluntary and regulatory carbon offset standards and policies.
The Carbon Credit Quality Initiative offers independent scorings to measure the quality of carbon credits. Produced by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Oeko-Institut and World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), it is a useful and ongoing resource to help carbon credit buyers identify high quality in the market. It is a unique initiative because: It is not funded by revenues related to carbon credits; the experts providing the assessments are not employed by project developers or carbon crediting programs; and it scores credits on an interval scale, not on a binary basis.
Gold Standard’s tracker is intended to enhance the transparency of carbon market regulations, and support governments, project developers, investors, and other market participants in navigating the evolving regulatory landscape. This ongoing project visualises carbon market regulations by country on its map and allows users to explore by country.
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.