International Consultation on the Core Carbon Principles to create High Integrity Carbon Credits

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The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM) is an independent governance body for the voluntary carbon market. Our purpose is to ensure the voluntary carbon market accelerates a just transition to 1.5⁰C.

The IC-VCM will set and enforce definitive global threshold standards, drawing on the best science and expertise available, so high-quality carbon credits efficiently mobilize finance towards urgent mitigation and climate resilient development.

The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) and Assessment Framework (AF) will set new threshold standards for high-quality carbon credits, provide guidance on how to apply the CCPs, and define which carbon-crediting programs and methodology types are CCP-eligible.

Have your say at the public consultation

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market has launched a 60-day full, open public consultation on the draft Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), Assessment Framework and Assessment Procedure.

The purpose of the CCPs and Assessment Framework is ultimately to provide a credible, rigorous, and readily accessible means of identifying high-quality carbon credits that create real, additional and verifiable climate impact with high environmental and social integrity.

We will do this by establishing a definitive and consistent benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits, based on solid science and best practice; assessing crediting programs and credit types against that benchmark; and clearly identifying those that meet it.

The draft CCPs and accompanying draft Assessment Framework will also establish a clear pathway for continual improvement.

The draft Assessment Procedure sets out a proposed process for assessing CCP-eligibility, how eligible carbon credits will be tagged; how the Integrity Council will continue to oversee and enforce the CCPs; and facilitate the continual development of the voluntary carbon market.