The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has granted conditional Core Carbon Principles (CCP) approval to the ACR (formerly known as American Carbon Registry)’s Afforestation & Reforestation of Degraded Lands methodology. This is only the second methodology of that type (afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation or ARR) to meet the voluntary carbon market self-regulatory body’s high-integrity benchmark.

The approval applies only to “natural forest establishment and restoration,” based on the Council’s conclusion that projects of that kind meet its additionality and permanence requirements. Specifically, it applies to versions 1.0 to 1.2 of the ACR methodology: the nearly four million carbon credits in circulation that have been generated using that methodology, primarily from a single US-based project, now have the CPP label, rendering them “high-integrity.”

This is the first batch of afforestation and reforestation credits to qualify for CCP status: the label has thus far been bestowed upon credits generated by projects in industrial and waste management.