8/25/2023
CORE CARBON PRINCIPLES
What makes a carbon credit truly trustworthy? Following extensive discussions with industry stakeholders, the Integrity Council, known as ICVCM, has crafted the 10 Core Carbon Principles. These principles delineate the essential criteria for carbon credits committed to maintaining integrity…
What are the CCPs?
The 10 CCPs can be categorized into three: Emissions Impact, Governance and Sustainable Development
Emissions Impact
1. Additionality: Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or removals from mitigation activities should be genuinely additional, occurring due to carbon credit incentives.
2. Permanence: GHG emission reductions or removals must be permanent, with safeguards against potential reversals.
3. Robust Quantification of Emission Reductions and Removals: Quantification should employ conservative, comprehensive, and scientific methods for GHG emission reductions or removals.
4. No Double Counting: GHG emission reductions or removals should not be counted twice toward mitigation targets, including double issuance, claiming, or use.
Governance
5. Effective Program Governance: The carbon credit program must establish robust governance to ensure transparency, accountability, continuous enhancement, and the overall quality of carbon credits
6. Tracking: The program should use a registry to uniquely identify, document, and monitor mitigation activities and carbon credits issued, ensuring secure and unequivocal credit identification
7. Transparency: The program must provide comprehensive, transparent information on all accredited mitigation activities, readily accessible in electronic form for non-experts to scrutinize.
8. Rigorous Independent Third-Party Validation and Verification: Program-level requirements should mandate thorough independent third-party validation and verification of mitigation activities
Sustainable Development
9. Sustainable Development Benefits and Safeguards: The program should offer clear guidance, tools, and compliance procedures to ensure mitigation activities align with or exceed established industry best practices, delivering positive sustainable development impacts.
10. Contribution Toward Net Zero Transition: Mitigation activities should avoid perpetuating GHG emissions, technologies, or carbon-intensive practices incompatible with achieving mid-century net-zero GHG emission goals.
How to assess the CCPs?
The Assessment Framework
The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are implemented through the Assessment Framework, which provides rigorous criteria and decision tools for each principle. Carbon credits will only earn the CCP label after assessment by the Integrity Council, meeting the high-integrity criteria outlined in the CCPs for climate, environmental, and social considerations.
The Assessment Process
The Assessment Procedure integrates the Core Carbon Principles into the voluntary carbon market, specifying:
- The process for evaluating CCP eligibility.
- Identification of eligible carbon credits.
- Supervision and enforcement of the CCPs by the Integrity Council.
- Facilitating ongoing development of the voluntary carbon market.
What are the expected impacts?
The Core Carbon Principles set a global standard for credible, high-integrity carbon credits, fostering trust, attracting additional investments, and driving meaningful climate action at the required speed and scale to achieve the 1.5°C target.
Building Trust in the Voluntary Carbon Market: Buyers gain confidence in identifying and valuing high-integrity carbon credits, reducing confusion, market fragmentation, and ensuring support for projects with a genuine impact on emissions. This aids in directing capital toward impactful, cost-effective climate mitigation activities, particularly vital for developing economies.
Investing in Impactful Projects: A high-integrity voluntary carbon market accelerates the adoption of emerging technologies, safeguards biodiversity, and provides essential funding to indigenous peoples and local communities who preserve crucial carbon sinks.
An Ambitious Yet Attainable Standard: With the Core Carbon Principles, a bold but reachable benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits has been established. This marks just the beginning, as the Integrity Council envisions continuous improvement, collaborating with industry stakeholders to enhance and fortify the CCPs over time.
For further info about the CCPs and ICVCM: https://icvcm.org
Climate Balanced’s Opinion
The ICVCM's Core Carbon Principles serve as a compass in the complex landscape of carbon management. By adhering to these principles, individuals, organizations, and governments can confidently navigate the carbon market and contribute to a sustainable and carbon-neutral future. With measurement, transparency, innovation, and community engagement as guiding principles, the world can work together to combat climate change and protect the planet for generations to come.
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