Carbon Friendly

There is currently no central verification and registration body or a set of enforceable standards for the Voluntary Market.  However, there are several globally recognized and industry accepted standards for the creation of VERs from various emission reduction or carbon sequestration projects, as follows:

  • Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). Backed by the International Emission Trading Association (IETA), it creates a tradable carbon unit that is registered in an independent registry to provide maximum credibility to its users. The definition of project procedures for the VCS is not yet finalized, and it remains to be seen during the coming months how advantageous a registration could be.
  • The WBCSD/WRI’s GHG Protocol for Project Accounting. The GHG Protocol is a rather technical standard that provides tools for calculating emission reductions. The tools are often similar to those provided by the IPCC. It may be advantageous to draw on the GHG Protocol for designing the ex-ante and ex-post estimation of emission reductions.
  • The International Standards Organization (ISO) 14064-2 process. The ISO released its “14064 Part 2” standard for project-based GHG reduction quantification in March 2006. The standard, product of a multi-stakeholder process, provides a succinct set of basic, verifiable requirements that must be met to fully account for project-based GHG reductions. While the WBCSD/WRI GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-2 standard differ somewhat in their terminology and requirements, they are essentially complementary.  Both are meant to be policy neutral and include strict technical procedures to quantify emission reductions.
  • Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). The CCX is an exchange for carbon credits of its member institutions mainly from Canada, the USA and Mexico, and it also allows for the import of project-based emission reductions. The first phase of the CCX focused on projects from North America and Brazil, however, other countries are allowed in the present phase two, which runs until 2010.
  • The CCB Standard. The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Project Design Standards (CCB Standards) evaluate land-based carbon mitigation projects. The development of the CCB Standards was spearheaded by the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) – a partnership among research institutions, corporations and environmental groups.

Burning fossil fuels is responsible for most of the increase in carbon dioxide.