The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are a global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits that set rigorous thresholds on disclosure and sustainable development. Developed with input from hundreds of organizations throughout the voluntary carbon market, the CCPs provide a credible and rigorous means of identifying high-integrity carbon credits that create real, verifiable climate impact, based on the latest science and best practice.
High-integrity carbon credits can unlock urgently needed finance to reduce and remove billions of tonnes of emissions. The world is on track for 2.6°C warming by 2100. We need every tool available working at full speed to secure a liveable future. A high-integrity voluntary carbon market is one important tool that can help finance the transition to 1.5°C.
The 10 Core Carbon Principles
The Integrity Council has developed 10 Core Carbon Principles which set out the key principles for high-integrity carbon credits:
A. Governance
Effective governance
The carbon-crediting program shall have effective program governance to ensure transparency, accountability, continuous improvement and the overall quality of carbon credits.
Tracking
The carbon-crediting program shall operate or make use of a registry to uniquely identify, record and track mitigation activities and carbon credits issued to ensure credits can be identified securely and unambiguously.
Transparency
The carbon-crediting program shall provide comprehensive and transparent information on all credited mitigation activities. The information shall be publicly available in electronic format and shall be accessible to non-specialised audiences, to enable scrutiny of mitigation activities.
Robust independent third-party validation and verification
The carbon-crediting program shall have program-level requirements for robust independent third-party validation and verification of mitigation activities.
B. Emissions Impact
Additionality
The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be additional, i.e., they would not have occurred in the absence of the incentive created by carbon credit revenues.
Permanence
The GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be permanent or, where there is a risk of reversal, there shall be measures in place to address those risks and compensate reversals.
Robust quantification of emission reductions and removals
The GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be robustly quantified, based on conservative approaches, completeness and scientific methods.
No double counting
The GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall not be double counted, i.e., they shall only be counted once towards achieving mitigation targets or goals. Double counting covers double issuance, double claiming, and double use.
C. Sustainable Development
Sustainable development benefits and safeguards
The carbon-crediting program shall have clear guidance, tools and compliance procedures to ensure mitigation activities conform with or go beyond widely established industry best practices on social and environmental safeguards while delivering positive sustainable development impacts.
Contribution toward net zero transition
The mitigation activity shall avoid locking-in levels of GHG emissions, technologies or carbon-intensive practices that are incompatible with the objective of achieving net zero GHG emissions by mid-century.
The Assessment Framework
The CCPs are operationalised through the Assessment Framework, which provides rigorous criteria and decision tools for each principle. Carbon credits will receive the CCP label only if both the carbon-crediting program that issued them and the credit category are assessed by the Integrity Council and meet its criteria for high-integrity (climate, environmental and social) set out in the CCPs.
The Assessment Procedure
The Assessment Procedure aims to embed the Core Carbon Principles into the voluntary carbon market. It sets out:
- Our process for assessing CCP-eligibility
- How eligible carbon credits will be tagged
- How the Integrity Council will continue to oversee and enforce the CCPs
- How this process aims to help facilitate the continual development of the voluntary carbon market
The Assessment Framework lays out the criteria that carbon-crediting programs and categories must meet to quality for the CCP label. Credits must fund projects to reduce and remove emissions that are:
- Compatible with a transition to net zero. The framework rules out projects that lock in emissions.
- Permanent. Projects must compensate for any reversals that happen within 40 years.
- Additional. Reductions and removals would not have happened without carbon credit revenue.
- Robustly quantified. The emissions impact must be measured conservatively to minimize the risk of overestimation.
To ensure the voluntary carbon market accelerates a just transition to 1.5°C, the Integrity Council has developed an Assessment Framework for carbon-crediting programs and categories of carbon credits. If programs and categories meet the criteria laid out in the Assessment Framework, they are assessed as CCP-eligible and given the CCP label.
The CCP label is designed to build trust in the voluntary carbon market and unlock investment by making it easy for buyers to recognize and put a price on a high-integrity carbon credit no matter which carbon crediting program issued it, what kind of credit it is, or where it is generated. This aims to set and maintain a voluntary global threshold standard for quality in the voluntary carbon market.
The Assessment Framework will be used to assess whether programs meet the CCP criteria. While ICVCM is assessing whether programs meet the CCP criteria, working groups of internal and external experts will be set up to review and assess categories of carbon credits. A Categories Working Group will make recommendations on which categories should be fast tracked for approval, which raise more complex issues and require deeper assessment, and which credits should not be approved.
Multi-Stakeholder Working Groups consisting of experts with specialised knowledge will assess categories that raise more complex issues. They will recommend whether categories should be approved. Categories with the largest current or expected market share will be prioritized for assessment. The ICVCM Board will make the final decisions on programs and categories.
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
Following consultation with hundreds of organizations throughout the voluntary carbon market and advice from scientific and carbon-crediting experts, the Integrity Council has completed the framework it will use to assess whether carbon credits meet its high-integrity Core Carbon Principles (CCPs). Carbon-crediting programs can now apply for assessment by submitting evidence that they meet the CCPs through the Integrity Council’s application portal. Once approved as CCP-Eligible, programs will be able to use the CCP label on specific categories of credits that have been approved as meeting the CCPs.
Annette Nazareth, Integrity Council Chair, said: “The voluntary carbon market can play a key role in mobilizing private capital to support the 1.5-degree Paris climate target. Our CCPs and assessment criteria set a global threshold for quality which aims to unlock finance at speed and scale for projects to reduce and remove billions of tonnes of emissions that would not otherwise be viable.
The Core Carbon Principles sets out ten fundamental principles for high-quality carbon credits, based on the latest science and best practice. They require carbon credits to make a real, verifiable impact on emissions and also make a positive impact on sustainable development, and they must be issued by programs that have robust governance.
To qualify for the CCP label carbon credits must fund activities to reduce and remove emissions that are:
Compatible with a transition to net zero. The framework rules out projects that lock in fossil fuel emissions or technologies. Permanent. Projects will have to monitor and report on emissions reductions and removals for at least 40 years where there is a risk they may be reversed – for example through wildfires – and maintain a risk-based “buffer pool” of carbon credits that can be cancelled to compensate for any reversals.
Additional. Programs must ensure that the emissions reductions or removals would not have happened without carbon credit incentives and that they were not enforced by law. They must show credits were a consideration in developing the project, and that it would not be viable without them. Robustly Quantified. Programs must ensure that projects measure their impact on emissions conservatively to minimize the risk of overestimation.
Gabriel Labbate, Head of Climate Mitigation at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), emphasized the significance of this development, stating, “Ensuring integrity in voluntary carbon markets is a process, not a one-off attempt, and the IC-VCM Core Carbon Principles Framework is a critically important milestone. Carbon markets of high integrity have a major role to play in funding the protection and restoration of our forests and other ecosystems.”
The Assessment Framework, which is part of the Core Carbon Principles, sets a robust and achievable threshold to elevate standards to a consistent level of quality across the carbon market. To earn the CCP label, carbon credits must fund projects that adhere to specific criteria, including compatibility with a transition to net zero, permanence within 40 years, additionality, and robust quantification of emissions impact to minimize overestimation.
Furthermore, the CCPs require all new projects to implement strong social and environmental safeguards that deliver positive sustainable development impacts. This new framework replaces and incorporates the previously published documents in March, reaffirming the IC-VCM’s commitment to driving climate ambition and transparency in the market.
Nature-based solutions will play a critical role in the VCM’s efforts to address climate change. The CCPs aim to strengthen high-integrity REDD+ forestry projects and the emerging JREDD (jurisdictional approaches to reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) category, ensuring that carbon credits from nature projects contribute to meaningful emissions reductions and environmental conservation. The launch of the Core Carbon Principles Framework marks a significant milestone in the journey towards a high-integrity voluntary carbon market. By establishing a clear benchmark for quality, the IC-VCM is paving the way for transformative climate action, mobilizing private capital, and driving investment towards sustainable and impactful climate solutions worldwide. All new projects will have to put in place robust social and environmental safeguards that deliver positive sustainable development impacts.