The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has approved three methodologies for issuing credits from projects that avoid deforestation, commonly referred to as “REDD+.” This is noteworthy because REDD+ has faced its fair share of skepticism—researchers have often found that many projects offset far less carbon than developers claimed. Unlike prior assessments focused on established methodologies with a high volume of issued credits, this time, the ICVCM approved relatively new methodologies that have yet to issue credits. This decision effectively signals a preference for jurisdictional approaches, even though these methodologies are still untested in practice.

This analysis—our fourth in a series on carbon credits in circulation—dives into how credits from major registries like ACR (formerly American Carbon Registry), Climate Action Reserve (CAR), Gold Standard, and Verra stack up against the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles (CCP). As outlined in our initial analysis, credits without CCP label are less likely to be retired (or “used”) and more likely to end up as part of the growing “unwanted stockpile” of credits that aren’t meeting market demand, as the CCP label essentially separates “high-quality” credits from the rest. The ICVCM’s latest assessment has significant implications for supply, as all REDD+ credits in circulation originate from older methodologies excluded from the evaluation and, by extension, de facto do not meet ICVCM standards. Without the CCP label, these credits are now classified as lower quality and are likely to contribute to the growing “unwanted stockpile” of credits that do not meet market demand. Nevertheless, our latest quarterly report shows that ICVCM’s seal of approval, while influential, has not yet fully shifted market dynamics.