Quality Assurance

With more than 20 years’ experience finding the highest quality projects and partners, our clients rely on us to deliver climate solutions with real, sustainable, measurable impact.

Quality assurance is at the heart of what we do. We have developed a leading-edge due diligence process that goes beyond industry requirements and continually evolves to set best practice.

• All the carbon finance projects we support are independently validated and verified to recognized global standards, including the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Gold Standard, the American Carbon Registry (ACR), and the Climate Action Reserve (CAR). Many are also recognized under the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard.
• As founding members of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA), we comply with the ICROA Code of Best Practice through an annual audit.
• We are licensed to supply Green-e Energy certified Renewable Energy Certificates.
• Our Portfolio Management and Project Development teams conduct a detailed due diligence review of every project we consider, ensuring we only contract those that meet our quality standards.
  
  
  • The review includes reputational, political, or environmental risk, financial and legal structure of project partners, delivery risk, detailed technical assessment of project design and implementation.
  • Our partner relationship manager team keeps in regular contact with each project partner, monitoring delivery, tracking milestones, and discussing future opportunities.
  • We conduct a detailed evaluation of the additional benefits to households, communities, and biodiversity from projects, to understand their alignment with specific targets under the Sustainable Development Goals.
    
• We demonstrate traceability and transparency by developing our own tracking system to manage our inventory and allocation of carbon credits and all credits are registered and retired through third-party registry platforms.
• We are closely involved with industry groups to evolve and develop standards and approaches for greater impact.
  
• We are part of the PD Forum, ICROA technical working group, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) Expert Advisory Group, Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) Task Force, Natural Climate Solutions Alliance, and sat on the Board or Advisory Forum to the organizations that set standards for quality and impact when these initiatives were first formed: Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) Advisory Forum, 3R Initiative Advisory Forum, RECs International Board, the Verra Blue Carbon Working Group.
• We work closely with NGOs and industry bodies to develop the latest thinking on the role of the Voluntary Carbon Market in meeting the Paris Agreement goals. Our understanding and insights on best practice and policy developments is shared with our clients, through webinars, briefings, and papers.

CARBON STANDARDS 

All the carbon finance projects we develop and support are independently validated and verified to recognized global carbon standards. These include:  

The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) 

The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) set by Verra is the world’s most widely used voluntary program to ensure the credibility of emission reduction projects. The program covers a diverse range of sectors, including renewable energy and forestry. All VCS projects must follow a rigorous assessment process in order to be certified. Developed and administered by Verra, a not-for-profit organization founded by environmental and business leaders who saw the need for greater quality assurance in voluntary carbon markets, the VCS program enables the channeling of finance towards high quality projects and drives practical and robust solutions to mitigate climate change. Find out more here.

Gold Standard 

Gold Standard was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions included the highest levels of environmental integrity and contributed to sustainable development. 

Its best practice standard, the Gold Standard for the Global Goals, sets requirements to design projects that are ambitious and inclusive, have maximum impact in climate and development, and are continuously improved. Gold standard carbon credits for carbon offset projects have robust measurement and reporting outcomes.  

Learn more about Gold Standard for the Global Goals here.

The American Carbon Registry (ACR)  

The American Carbon Registry (ACR), a not-for-profit enterprise of Winrock International, is a leading carbon offset program recognized for its innovative practices and strong standards for environmental integrity. ACR has more than 20 years’ experience in the development of rigorous, science-based carbon offset standards and methodologies in addition to operational experience in carbon offset project registration, verification oversight, and offset issuance. Find out more here.

Climate Action Reserve (CAR) 

The Climate Action Reserve, based in the US, is focused on establishing high-quality standards for quantifying and verifying carbon emissions reduction projects, overseeing independent third-party verification bodies, issuing carbon credits generated from projects, and tracking these credits on a transparent, publicly-available system. The voluntary offset program ensures the environmental integrity of using offsets and increases credibility and efficiencies in the carbon market by creating a trusted and valuable commodity. Learn more about CAR here.

Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB Standards) 

The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCB Standards) assess land management projects from the early stages of development through implementation. The CCB Standards, developed by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) and managed by Verra, promote the integration of best practice and multiple benefit approaches into project design and implementation.  

Find out about CCB Standards here.

Plan Vivo  

Plan Vivo certifies community and smallholder land-use and forestry projects against the Plan Vivo Standard. The Standard is a set of requirements used to certify projects based on their climate, livelihoods and environmental benefits. Developed with over 25 years of experience, it is the longest-standing carbon Standard in the Voluntary Carbon Market and is internationally recognised as the leading Standard for community land-use projects.  

Learn more about Plan Vivo and its Standard here.

Woodland Carbon Code  

The Woodland Carbon Code is the quality assurance standard for woodland creation projects in the UK. Supported by the UK Government, the forest industry and carbon market experts, the Code is unique in providing independently verified woodland carbon units and pending insurance units in the UK. It also has a transparent registry, providing users with the ability to track ownership, transfer, and use of credits. The Code is endorsed by ICROA and is internationally recognised for its high standards of sustainable forest management and carbon management. Learn more about the Code here.