How Carbon Offsets Are Verified
The Climate Trust develops and markets carbon credits that have been issued by carbon registries with science-based, peer-reviewed, and transparent (open for public comment) standards and methodologies. All projects undergo a rigorous verification process led by an accredited verification body. While the requirements for each project depend on the applicable carbon registry and project type, all projects are subject to similar processes of thorough desk-based review and an in-person visit to the project site.
Carbon credit verification is a critical component of project development and refers to the review and certification of a project’s eligibility, measurements, and modeling through a third-party, ANSI-accredited verification body. Verification involves comparing project materials and outcomes against the registry’s methodology, or set of requirements that must be followed to quantify, monitor, report, and verify GHG emission reductions and/or removals by following scientific good practice. Verification bodies are approved by carbon registries for specific methodologies once they have demonstrated independence and competency in the subject area.
The desk review phase involves substantial time, effort, and expense, and is a key contributor to high project development costs overall. Carbon registries can reduce subjectivity and uncertainty in the verification process, and limit costly delays resulting from methodological complexity and ambiguity, by providing standardized models. For example, the CAR Grassland Protocol’s GrassTool, the CARB IFM Protocol’s common practice table, and the Climate Forward Reforestation Communities Datafile all automate certain calculation steps using a set of clearly defined, project-specific inputs.
In contrast, most voluntary IFM projects in the United States are developed under the ACR methodology, which recently adopted a dynamic baseline setting procedure based on a complex GIS analysis involving project developers’ discretion at many steps and requiring advanced technical expertise. A transparent, standardized, peer-reviewed, and annually-updated geospatial tool maintained by ACR would streamline verification, reduce project development costs and due diligence costs for buyers, and improve overall trust in projects using the ACR IFM methodology. Importantly, a streamlined approach improves market access, the primary diversity, equity, and inclusion challenge for the VCM, by directly reducing costs and encouraging the formation of a more robust service provider environment by limiting the requirement for highly-specific technical expertise and computational resources. With robust development and verification processes in place, market participants can focus on scaling the VCM to deliver verified GHG benefits and co-benefits for communities and ecosystems.