The governance body for this is main, overarching role is the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM). First ICVCM defines the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) which defines global requirements for high-integrity carbon credits to be 1. real, 2. verifiable, 3. science based. Based on codified CCPs, the governance body then runs detailed assessments evaluating
- Carbon Credit Programs
- Carbon Credit Categories
- Methodologies that define and verify each carbon credit
Provided that all – the program, the category, and the exact methodology – pass the required tests, the issued carbon credits can then be labelled as “CCP-Approved”. ICVCM aims to be the highest standard and thereby signal high-integrity of the carbon credit – something that the buyers and marketplaces can finally safely settle on. Table 20 gives the Carbon Credit Programs which have applied for ICVCM assessment, and so far, Integrity Council has approved five programs (with aggregate 98% market share) as CCP-Eligible.[1]
Table 20. Carbon Credit Programs applying for ICVCM assessment.
The full list of approve (and denied!) Carbon Credit Categories can be found on ICVCM’s website (www.icvcm.org/assessment-status/). Of these four are geared toward forestry and are listed in Table 21.[2]
Table 21. Carbon Credit Categories
Finally, the key component – and what ultimately everything relies on – is for each category the exact methodology that defines a credit. According to the Core Carbon Principles these methods have to ensure that the credits are:
- Additional
- Permanent
- Single-counted
- Demonstrate robust quantification of emission removals
It is really this last component, robust quantification, which determines whether the carbon credits – and the entire market – will work. It is defined as
“The GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be robustly quantified, based on conservative approaches, completeness, and scientific methods.”
In reality, this is very, very difficult to do, and are continuously being refined by ICVCM’s Continuous Improvement Work Programs on Permanence and Digital Measurement, Reporting and Validation)
[1] based on retirements in 2023.
[2] Of these, the first two are REDD+ oriented, and therefore more related to the tropical forest biome. The ones important for boreal forests are Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation and especially Improved Forest Management.