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.
The ICVCM was established to enhance the credibility of the voluntary carbon market by setting a benchmark for high-integrity credits. Its Core Carbon Principles function as a labelling system, similar to labels used in consumer goods or sustainable product certifications. Since the second quarter of 2024, the ICVCM has been systematically evaluating more than 100 methodologies across 33 project categories. This process is redefining which types of credits are viewed as legitimate by corporate buyers, traders, and regulators – see our last analysis about ICVCM’s verdict on cookstove here.
Prices of voluntary carbon credits – in contrast to compliance units in regulated markets like the EU ETS, the WCI, or RGGI – are not based on supply (emissions caps) and demand (emissions). With the amount of credits generated by projects being theoretically unlimited, the demand for credits is determined by buyer preferences around “quality” attributes such as additionality, permanence, societal co-benefits and environmental integrity. As scrutiny of credit legitimacy intensifies, buyers increasingly favour credits that either carry the CCP label or meet equivalent third-party standards. Carbon credits of all types have been and continue to be issued, but are part of a large theoretical “unused supply” until they are retired, meaning cancelled or withdrawn because they have been used to meet an entity’s climate change mitigation claims. Veyt distinguishes between credits likely to be retired because they have the CCP label and those likely to remain indefinitely in circulation without being used for carbon claims: only the former constitute the voluntary market’s true “supply.”
Five ACR-registered projects apply the now-approved ARR methodology. Among these, only one – GreenTrees Advanced Carbon Restored Ecosystem or ACRE – has been issued credits. That project has generated a total of 7.79 million credits over its lifetime, with approximately 3.7 million of those still in circulation (not retired) and thus now eligible for CCP designation. About 40% of those were generated after 2020, and fewer than 10 percent before 2016. The inclusion of these credits expands the pool of high-integrity nature-based solutions available in the voluntary market.
With this latest approval, afforestation and reforestation credits now comprise a small portion of the total CCP-eligible pool – about 7%. The other categories of projects ICVCM’s assessments to date have approved are landfill gas capture, ozone-depleting substance destruction, fugitive methane emissions avoidance, adipic acid production changes, REDD+, cookstoves, and biodigesters. The total number of CCP-eligible credits now in circulation stands at approximately 50 million, with most having originated from industrial and engineered reduction projects targeting leak detection and repair, landfill gas capture, and specific chemical production processes.The 50 million represent only a small fraction of the estimated 800 million credits available to retire across the four largest carbon registries – see Figure 1.
The vast majority of voluntary carbon credits in circulation remain either ineligible for the CCP label or not yet assessed for it. Approximately 330 million credits, or 40% of the total inventory, are linked to methodologies that have been rejected by the ICVCM. Among these, the CDM ACM0002 methodology accounts for nearly 70% of the rejected volume, reflecting widespread reliance on legacy renewable energy projects with questionable additionality – see Figure 2.
A further 200 million credits have been excluded from the assessment process by the registries themselves. This segment includes methodologies such as Verra’s VMR0006 (cookstoves) and several REDD project types (VM0007, VM0009, VM0015). These credits are currently outside the scope of the ICVCM process, although future inclusion remains possible.
That leaves approximately 140 million credits still undergoing evaluation. ACR-issued credits make up a large share of this segment, particularly from methodologies addressing improved forest management, certified reclaimed refrigerants, and advanced foam-blowing agents. The outcome of these pending assessments will have a material impact on the future structure of CCP-eligible supply.
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