Verra

📢 Verra’s new cookstoves methodology has been approved by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) under its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) Assessment Framework, making Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program methodology VM0050 Energy Efficiency and Fuel-Switch Measures in Cookstoves, v1.0, one of the first methodologies for clean cooking projects to meet the ICVCM’s high-integrity standards.   🫕This approval marks a major milestone for clean cooking projects and the voluntary carbon market (VCM). It also reinforces the methodology’s scientific rigor, transparency, and credibility, and underscores that cookstove carbon credits deliver real, measurable, and verifiable emission reductions while improving the lives of millions.   ✅ VM0050 sets a new benchmark for quality and impact in carbon markets, signaling to project developers and buyers that credits generated under this methodology meet the highest standards for environmental integrity.   “Today’s approval by the ICVCM is a defining milestone for clean cooking projects and the voluntary carbon market,” said Verra CEO Mandy Rambharos. “There are 2.3 billion people in the world who still rely on polluting cooking methods; cookstove projects and the carbon credits they generate can deliver both clean cooking technologies and the necessary finance to provide them to local communities.”   “The ICVCM’s decision is a powerful endorsement of cookstove credits as a high-integrity climate solution that provides measurable environmental benefits for global impact,” she said.   Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/4bsQCy8   #Verra #StandardsMatter #CarbonMarkets #CarbonCredits #ClimateAction #CleanCookstoves

🔎 How can a standards program help tackle Scope 3 emissions?    Last week we explored the answer in a series of posts. Today, in our closing post, we look at the big picture to discuss how a Scope 3 program fits into the broader context of climate action.     💡 Successfully tackling the climate crisis requires an “all-hands-on-deck" approach. It means not finding that one silver bullet, but advancing every solution, all the time.    Such a comprehensive and impactful approach requires that companies do all of the following:  🧩 Address the emissions they directly produce (Scope 1 emissions)  🧩 Tackle within-value-chain emissions through Scope 3 interventions  🧩 Implement beyond-value-chain climate mitigation through the purchase of carbon credits     ✅ Companies should address emissions resulting from their direct operations as much as possible.     ✅ Value-chain climate action can be catalyzed through setting Scope 3 emissions targets and implementing value chain interventions to meet them. This approach to avoiding, reducing, or replacing emissions across interconnected value chains can facilitate economy-wide actions and put us on a path toward a net-zero economy.     💱 These actions create a trajectory for long-term sector-wide change.    ✅ Beyond-value-chain climate mitigation can be achieved via the purchase of carbon credits. By purchasing carbon credits from high-integrity carbon projects, companies can go further and maximize their climate, social, and biodiversity impacts, meeting other targets and claims.    🌏 These actions create a trajectory for long-term global change. 

📢 Public Comment Period Now Open! 🌍 Every project seeking to register in a Verra standards program undergoes a 30-day public comment period. The public comment periods for the projects listed here opened during the weeks of February 24 and March 3. The previous two weeks' listings includes projects seeking registration and/or verification in the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), and the Plastic Waste Reduction Standard Programs. 📍The projects are located in various geographic regions, including China, Korea, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and others. They include the following: a centralized manure management plant designed to generate renewable energy; a smallholder reforestation and sustainable development initiative; an initiative that diverts substantial volumes of plastic away from landfills and natural environments; a project that aims to restore 20,000 hectares of degraded land; and a project that quantifies carbon emission reductions from electric vehicle charging systems using VCS methodology VM0038 to generate carbon credits. 🌱 Impact Highlight: Collectively, these projects could reduce and/or remove at least 848,054 tCO2e annually from the atmosphere, and collect and recycle 52,147 metric tonnes of plastic waste per year, helping to accelerate our transition to a more sustainable future. 🔗 Learn More: View the full list of projects that opened for public comment during the weeks of February 24 and March 3 in our announcement: https://lnkd.in/gs-4Ks8a 🗣️ Get Involved: Share your thoughts and contribute to shaping these projects. Your feedback matters! #ClimateAction #CarbonMarkets #Verra #SustainableDevelopment #CarbonCredits #StandardsMatter #PlasticPollution #CircularEconomy Photo by Sodamika Photo via Shutterstock.com

🔎 How can a standards program help tackle Scope 3 emissions?    This week, we are exploring the answer in a series of posts.    Today, we look at how Verra’s Scope 3 Standard Program will effectively help companies reach their Scope 3 targets.    As companies have adopted ambitious climate targets that include Scope 3 emissions, they are encountering the following significant challenges in achieving these targets:    ❌ A lack of detailed, comprehensive, and verifiable accounting rules   ❌ A lack of transparent and standardized methods and limited use of primary data  ❌ The inability to track progress against Scope 3 targets    ❌ A lack of standardized and transparent assurance procedures       Verra’s Scope 3 Standard Program will address these needs and help scale up meaningful climate action in this space with the following:       ✅Auditable and robust program requirements   ✅Standardized, science-based, and peer-reviewed quantification methodologies that leverage primary data  ✅ A transparent Scope 3 registry to drive co-investment  ✅ Third-party verification of Scope 3 interventions and GHG outcomes      The first public consultation on preliminary program documents for Verra’s Scope 3 Standard (S3S) Program is now open. Read the announcement and provide feedback: https://bit.ly/41uxY4t  

💻 Webinar recording available! Yesterday, representatives from Verra and Perennial provided an overview of a draft digital soil mapping tool, which is currently open for public consultation through April 4. 📆 The tool is intended to be used in the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, along with Verra's Improved Agricultural Land Management methodology (VM0042) and other VCS methodologies that quantify soil organic carbon stocks in agricultural lands. 🌱 Watch the replay: https://bit.ly/43nhjCn 🔗 Learn about the public consultation: https://bit.ly/4i2SFuW #Verra #ClimateChange #CarbonMarkets #ClimateAction #Standards Matter

🔎 How can a standards program help tackle Scope 3 emissions?    This week, we will be exploring the answer in a series of posts.    Today, we explore why we need a program like Verra’s incipient Scope 3 Standards Program to help tackle companies’ value chain emissions.     🤔 Can a company just purchase carbon credits to meet Scope 3 emissions targets?     ➡️ Carbon credits, while a great way of advancing climate action, are not designed for Scope 3 emissions abatement. Carbon credits represent an emissions reduction or removal which can be used to offset an emission elsewhere. Generating a carbon credit does not include any assessment of whether the reduction or removal occurs within a value chain.     Also, carbon credits are limited to a single use (retirement) whereas Scope 3 emissions accounting enables co-claiming (and co-investment) due to the nested nature of emissions across companies within a value chain (see yesterday’s post on this topic).      👆 While carbon credits are not designed for Scope 3 emissions abatement, the greenhouse gas crediting programs that underpin them have developed a useful infrastructure (such as science-based, standardized, and field-tested quantification methodologies) that can form the basis for a robust and credible Scope 3 standards program.  

💻 Learn all about Verra's new rice methodology at our webinar next Tuesday, March 11, at 11:00 am ET! Verra staff will be joined by consultants from ATOA Carbon who supported the development process. 🍚 The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program methodology, VM0051, applies to projects implementing improved water and crop management practices in flooded rice systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  VM0051 can play a significant role in fighting climate change by encouraging the adoption of sustainable practices that lower emissions, improve resource use efficiency, and support socio-environmental co-benefits. ➡️ Register for the webinar: https://bit.ly/3DggiSa 🔗 Read about the methodology: https://bit.ly/3CZsHtD #Verra #StandardsMatter #CarbonMarkets #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

📢 Verra has launched the first public consultation on preliminary program documents for its incipient Scope 3 Standard (S3S) Program! The purpose of this consultation is to gather feedback on the clarity, comprehensiveness, and feasibility of essential program rules, concepts, and associated guidance. 📆 The consultation runs from March 6 through April 21, 2025.    💡The S3S Program builds on Verra’s flagship Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program and aims to deliver an innovative suite of harmonized requirements and guidance, filling a current critical market gap for a consistent approach to addressing Scope 3 emissions.  As a result, Verra’s new S3S Program is well-positioned to drive investment and scale up in-value-chain climate action.  The program will include the following elements:  ✅ Auditable and robust rules and requirements to enable assurance of credible Scope 3 intervention outcomes  ✅ Standardized, science-based, and peer-reviewed quantification methodologies that are publicly available   ✅ A transparent Scope 3 Registry to aid transparency, drive co-investment, and bring integrity and clarity through unit issuance   ✅ Third-party verification of Scope 3 intervention data, methods, and outcomes  ✅ Certification of Scope 3 interventions and their greenhouse gas outcomes, built on Verra’s robust third-party auditing and verification systems Read the full announcement and provide feedback on the draft documents: https://bit.ly/41uxY4t #Verra #Scope3 #CarbonMarkets #ClimateAction #StandardsMatter

📢 Last chance to register for tomorrow's webinar on the draft digital soil mapping tool, which is currently open for public consultation! Join representatives from Verra and Perennial for an overview of the tool at 10:00 am ET on Thursday, March 6. The tool is intended to be used in the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, along with Verra's Improved Agricultural Land Management methodology (VM0042) and other VCS methodologies that quantify soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in agricultural lands. The proposed tool provides guidance for the calibration and validation of data-driven modeling methods to estimate SOC stocks in a spatially explicit manner, including model uncertainty estimations and deductions. The tool allows for using a wide range of remote sensing technologies, geospatial data, and statistical methods that have been demonstrated through peer review to predict organic carbon content in the soil. 💻 Register for the webinar: https://bit.ly/4ku5Bfl 🔗 Participate in the public consultation through April 4: https://bit.ly/4i2SFuW #Verra #CarbonMarkets #CarbonCredits #ClimateChange #ClimateAction #StandardsMatter

🔎 How can a standards program help tackle Scope 3 emissions?    This week, we are exploring the answer in a series of posts.     Today, we’ll look at an example of Scope 3 emissions and what addressing them looks like.    ❓What’s a value chain?    ✅ A value chain includes the full lifecycle of a product or service, from production to use to end of life.    For example, a farmer produces grains and ➡️ sells that grain to a grain processor, ➡️ who sells processed grain to a cereal producer, ➡️ who cells cereal to a cereal retailer.    ❓What are value chain emissions?    ✅ The emissions generated on the farm as the farmer produces and packages the grains are the Scope 1 emissions of the farmer. Those Scope 1 emissions of the farmer are the upstream Scope 3 emissions of the grain processor, the cereal producer, and the cereal retailer.     The Scope 1 emissions generated by the grain processor in the processing of the grain are the downstream Scope 3 emissions of the farmer, and the upstream Scope 3 emissions of the cereal producer and the cereal retailer.    ❓ What does reducing value chain emissions look like?    ✅ If a farmer implements an intervention that reduces the grain production emissions (e.g., by implementing fertilizer management), the farmer reduces their Scope 1 emissions *and* the upstream Scope 3 emissions of the grain processor, the cereal producer, and the cereal retailer. The same emission reduction is co-claimed by all value chain partners.