Woodland Carbon Code advisory board member Bruce Kennedy provides an insight into his involvement with the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative. 

Bruce is a Senior Carbon Portfolio Manager at Boston Consulting Group and is responsible for purchasing carbon credits for BCG’s internal sustainability team. 

My involvement with the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative

Over the past couple of years, I have had the privilege of participating in the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative’s stakeholder forum and early adopters’ program. This has provided invaluable insights into the organisation's objectives and the detailed and rigorous process of developing and publishing the Claims Code of Practice in 2023. 

Aims

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative’s goal is to guide companies on how they can credibly incorporate the voluntary use of carbon credits as part of their long-term climate commitments and communicate their use in a credible and transparent manner. The Claims Code of Practice encourages companies to go above and beyond their Science Based Targets initiative near-term reduction targets and use high-quality carbon credits in the years leading up to their net-zero commitments. 

A key part of this involves enabling companies to make transparent and credible claims. The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative tackles this by ensuring claims can only be made by companies aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement and by mandating the use of the highest quality credits. 

Alignment with Paris Agreement

To make a claim, companies must meet several requirements to ensure they align with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. These requirements include publicly disclosing an annual greenhouse gas inventory, setting and demonstrating progress toward near-term science-based emissions reduction targets, committing to net-zero emissions by 2050, and ensuring the company’s public policy advocacy supports the goals of the agreement. 

High quality carbon credits

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative requires that all carbon credits used for claims are of the highest quality to underpin the credibility of its claims and help drive integrity across the market. It’s the role of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market to assess and determine the highest quality carbon credits.  

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market established the Core Carbon Principles and is currently certifying carbon standards and the carbon credits they issue against them. The first tranche of labelled credits has just been confirmed, however some standards, including the Woodland Carbon Code, and the majority of credits are still to be assessed.  

Therefore, while the integrity council continues to certify credits, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative has introduced a temporary measure. Companies can use high-quality credits which are yet to be assessed if they publicly disclose how they undertake due diligence on projects to be confident credits align with the principles. 

Ultimately the uncertainty of when credits with the Core Carbon Principles label will be mainstream in the market may hinder the initial uptake of the Claims Code. However, it’s a great step forward in providing integrity and transparency for corporate claims involving carbon credits.

You can find out more on the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative website.