ICVCM Latest Approvals and Criticism of REDD+ CCP Label

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) released two assessment decisions on 12 December 2024. In its fourth announcement, Isometric became the sixth Carbon Crediting Program to be approved as CCP-Eligible. Isometric joins ACR, ART TREES, CAR, Gold Standard and Verra’s VCS as the sixth CCP-Eligible Carbon Crediting Program. Isometric is a carbon crediting standard focused on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), exclusively listing credits verified to the Isometric Standard.

On a methodology level, Verra’s VM0047 Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (ARR) methodology became the first ARR methodology approved to receive the CCP label, meeting the requirements of the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) Assessment Framework. No carbon credits have yet been issued under this methodology, but the approval decision paves the way for CCP-labelled ARR credits to enter the market.

Methodology	Credit Sources	Potential Supply	First CCP Credits Expected
VM0047	43 projects under development and 23 projects under Validation	Up to15 million annually (Up to 40-year crediting period)	2025

Prior to this, ICVCM had announced the approval of three jurisdictional and project Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) methodologies on 15 November 2024, previously summarized by ClearBlue.

On 10 December 2024, a group of current or former members of the Expert Panel of the ICVCM or Subject Matter Experts of the ICVCM stated that these methodologies do not meet several requirements of the Assessment Framework according to their own personal evaluations. The table below summarizes the main areas where experts have raised concerns.

Methodology Shortfall	Methodology	Description
Quantification of Emission Reductions	All three methodologies	The methodologies do not appropriately address the inherent uncertainty in establishing deforestation baselines which can lead to a large overestimation or underestimation of emission reductions for individual mitigation activities. The three methodologies all assume that the average deforestation levels observed in a jurisdiction (e.g. a country or sub-national region) in the past five or ten years will continue in the next crediting or baseline period, creating a risk the model would lead to an overestimation or underestimation of baseline emissions. The methodologies provide varying degrees of flexibility on how to quantify carbon stocks, creating a risk that activity proponents will pick favorable data, assumptions, or models that lead to an overestimation of emission reductions. Leakage across international borders, which could be significant for some jurisdictions or projects, is not considered.
Quantification of Emission Reductions	VM0048	Uncertainty of the model used to allocate the jurisdictional deforestation level to specific land areas is not considered. This raises concerns about potential selection bias in choosing project areas.
Additionality	ART TREES	ART TREES requires submitting implementation plans that outline planned programs or activities but does not require monitoring and reporting on their implementation. ART TREES does not have provisions requiring evidence that expected revenues from carbon credits are decisive for enabling the implementation of mitigation activities.
Additionality	ART TREES and JNR	Both methodologies allow four years to elapse between the start of a jurisdictional activity and the submission of the first documentation, creating a risk of granting eligibility to activities that were initially not undertaken with the expectation of generating carbon credits or receiving result-based funding.
Permanence	ART TREES	ART TREES does not require jurisdictional activities to monitor and compensate for reversals beyond the crediting period. There is no evidence that the contributions to the pooled buffer reserve are sufficient to cover reversals over 40 years.

The approval of these methodologies in their current form creates risks to the integrity of the ICVCM and sets a problematic precedent. This development highlights the ongoing challenges in ensuring high-quality carbon credits and the critical importance of robust methodologies and governance in carbon markets.

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