The largest carbon credit program(Verra) is ready to receive a seal of quality May 4, 2024

The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) is a Verra program that issues carbon credit certificates for CO2 capture projects.

By AFP -Agence France Presse

The largest carbon credit program is ready to receive a seal of quality

The world's largest carbon credit program, Verra, has taken a step towards working under a new quality standard to help rebuild trust in the scandal-hit offset market.

Verra was approved "after making significant changes to its procedures," said the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), which governs this non-binding seal for the sector.

Verra, a non-profit organization based in Washington DC, represents almost 70% of the global voluntary carbon market, which is not regulated by governments or a standard set of rules.

The credits are bought by companies seeking to offset the planet-warming emissions of their businesses, and large corporations use them to claim carbon neutrality.

However, revelations that some offsets, including those sold by Verra, do little or nothing for the environment have sent the market into turmoil and prices plummeting.

Verra has vehemently denied the allegations.

In a statement, ICVCM said Verra and another organization, ART, had met its "high integrity standard", joining three other companies approved in April.

"Together, these five programs have a 98% share of the voluntary carbon market," said the ICVCM, which is independent and advised by a panel of experts.

These programs cannot issue credits under this new label until the methods used to generate offsets are approved in a separate evaluation by the ICVCM.

This area of great controversy will be watched closely, as some projects have been considered to greatly exaggerate their climate benefits.

A single credit represents one ton of CO2 removed from the atmosphere or prevented from entering it, and projects, in theory, need to prove how this has been achieved.

Credits are generated through projects that reduce or avoid emissions, such as planting trees or protecting forests, and they need to demonstrate that this would not have happened without the revenue from offsets.

But critics say that many offsets are useless at best and harmful at worst, allowing big polluters to claim they are carbon neutral without reducing their actual production of greenhouse gases.

In January 2023, Verra faced allegations that it had approved millions of so-called "ghost credits": offsets that did not represent genuine carbon reductions, a claim it vehemently denied.

Verra's founder and CEO, who served for 15 years, stepped down in May 2023.

np/jm