Methodology for assessing the quality of carbon credits

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Oeko-Institut are developing the “Carbon Credit Quality Initiative” (previously referred to as “Carbon Credit Guidance for Buyers”) to guide buyers of carbon credits amidst a complex market. The project is implemented in several phases: Phase 1 of the project identified criteria for assessing the quality of carbon credits. Phase 2 developed an initial version of a methodology for assessing carbon credits against the criteria developed in Phase 1. Phase 3 piloted the application of the methodology to different carbon credits. This paper presents a revised version of the methodology that has been improved based on lessons learned from its pilot application. Subsequent phases will expand the application of the methodology and combine the results from the previous phases with additional recommendations for carbon credit buyers.

The methodology was prepared by a research team (Lambert Schneider, Felix Fallasch, Felipe De León, Mandy Rambharos, Nora Wissner, Tani Colbert-Sangree, Sophie Progscha), WWF-US (Brad Schallert, John Holler), and EDF (Kelley Kizzier, Annie Petsonk, Alex Hanafi, Pedro Barata, Chista Ogata, Walter Stuart, Darcy Jones) and takes into account the findings from the pilot application as well as feedback from a 5-week stakeholder consultation from 5 August to 7 September 2020 and from technical reviewers. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) helped facilitate the stakeholder consultation and provided analytical support as part of this process.

Click here for Version 1.0 of "Methodology for assessing the quality of carbon credits"