The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market has announced the first carbon-crediting methodologies that meet its Core Carbon Principles, meaning that the CCP label can now be used on approx. 27mn carbon credits that tackle potent greenhouse gases by capturing methane from landfill sites and by destroying ozone-depleting foams and refrigerant gases from discarded equipment such as refrigerators and air conditioners.
The ICVCM has approved versions of three methodologies for projects that destroy stockpiles of ozone depleting substances (ODS). These cover an estimated twelve million carbon credits that have been issued for projects that collect and destroy refrigerant gases and foams from discarded equipment. These can be between 725 and 14,400 times more harmful than CO2. They are:
- ACR’s Destruction of ODS from International Sources version 1.0
- CAR’s Article 5 Ozone Depleting Substances Project Protocol versions 1-2
- CAR’s U.S. Ozone Depleting Substances Project Protocol versions 1-2
The four methodologies for landfill gas (LFG) projects that cover an estimated fifteen million carbon credits issued by projects that capture methane from landfill sites. Tonne for tonne, methane is 28 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2 over a 100-year timeframe and 81 times more harmful over a 20-year timeframe.
They are:
- ACM0001 – Flaring or use of Landfill Gas versions 15-19, used by Verra and Gold Standard
- AMS iii G – Landfill Methane Recovery version 10, used by Verra and Gold Standard
- ACR’s Landfill Gas Destruction and Beneficial Use Projects version 1-2
- CAR’s US Landfill Protocol version 6
Furthermore, other methodologies which address landfill gas (covering an estimated 76 million more issued credits) and ODS (approx. four million more issued credits) are still being assessed.
ACM and AMS methodologies which meet the below conditions are also approved:
- All LFG project types that do not generate electricity and;
- LFG-to-electricity projects with a capacity of equal to or below 10MWe. Methodologies >10MWe remain under assessment.
Using the CCP label – the two-tick process
The Integrity Council operates a two-tick process, which means carbon credits can only be tagged with the CCP label if the carbon-crediting programme is approved as CCP-Eligible and the projects that generate the credits use methodologies that are CCP-Approved.
So far, the council has approved five programmes, which have a combined 98% market share as CCP-Eligible. These are ACR, ART, Climate Action Reserve (CAR), Gold Standard and Verra (VCS)—all of these programmes have updated some of their procedures to meet the high-integrity CCP criteria. However, they are only able to apply the CCP label to carbon credits that have been generated by projects that are issued under an Integrity Council approved methodology.
The ICVCM is continuing to assess Isometric, Puro-earth and Social Carbon.
Further updates
Separately, the ICVCM is assessing categories of carbon-crediting methodologies using internal experts and through its multi-stakeholder working groups (MSWGs) and this will continue to through to the year’s end. The MSWGs began convening in January. Three have now concluded and the fourth and fifth are underway. The sixth will start in Q324. These working groups are addressing the following:
- MSWG 1 – Improved Forest Management.
- MSWG 2 – Sustainable Agriculture, Rice Cultivation Methane Avoidance, Nutrition / Nitrogen Management, Buffer Practices, and Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (ARR).
- MSWG 3 – Renewable Energy.
- MSWG 4 – REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and Jurisdictional REDD (JREDD) methodologies for forestry projects at national or sub-national scale.
- MSWG 5 – Household Energy Demand, including clean cookstoves and household biodigesters.
- MSWG 6 – Biochar, tech-based CCS, industrial biodigesters and other clusters of methodologies that require more specialised review