Standards

We have separated this section into 3 areas: carbon credits standards, company level audits and product level audits.

Carbon Credit Standards

When screening carbon credits, we screen them to ensure that they comply with the following five principles:

1. Financially Additionality
For a carbon credit to be financially additional, the money from the credits must have been required to make the project happen beyond business as usual. Projects often fail this where they are cheaper than their more polluting equivalent, or their energy savings pays back in time frames that make it a ‘business as usual’ proposition.

2. Environmentally Additionality
The project must be additional to the environment. Carbon Credits can not be claimed on projects that would have occurred anyway. A good example being the natural growth of a forest or the implementation of an activity that would have occurred anyway through legislation or through a shift in market demand.

3. Permanence
Permanence is a very important requirement for a voluntary credit. Carbon savings that have been forward claimed or carbon emissions that have been stored can present a liability risk for any party using them to make a claim. If the emissions fail to happen, or are released into the atmosphere, and the project proponent does not make good this reduction, then the liability may fall back on the purchaser who made a claim to rectify the issue.

4. Leakage
Leakage is where a project results in an increase of emissions elsewhere. This is a major risk in avoided deforestation projects where the removal of one section of forest product from the market encourages the destruction of forest in another due to inelastic demand.

5. Validated and Verified Savings
The project must use a methodology that conservatively quantifies its emissions reductions through a scientifically valid approach. The project must be audited by an independent 3rd party to quantify the number of tonnes of greenhouse gas that it has saved. This can occur through ISO 14064.3 and 14065; through a GHG program, or through using an approved methodology from a GHG Program.

Any credit from projects that satisfy the 5 criteria above can be used within the NoCO2 certification program.

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