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Quality Carbon Offset Projects

The hallmarks of quality:

• Third-party certification standards
• Third-party verification that projects meet those standards
• Third-party auditing of the project portfolio

All Carbonfund.org offset projects are verified by a third party to meet the highest certification standards.

These standards address essential criteria for carbon offset projects:

• Real: The quantified greenhouse gas or carbon reductions must represent actual emission reductions that have already occurred.
• Additional: The greenhouse gas or carbon reductions must be surplus to regulation and beyond what would have happened in the absence of the project or in a business-as-usual scenario based on a performance standard methodology. Read more.
• Permanent: The greenhouse gas or carbon reductions must be permanent or have guarantees to ensure that any losses are replaced in the future. Read more.
• Verifiable: The greenhouse gas or carbon reductions must result from projects whose performance can be readily and accurately quantified, monitored and verified.

View our portfolio audit by Stegman and Company. Our latest audit for 2008 is available by clicking here.

The following are examples of the third-party standards our projects adhere to:


American Carbon Registry

The American Carbon Registry (ACR) is a non-profit U.S carbon market registry that was founded by Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Resources Trust in 1997 and is now an enterprise of Winrock International. ACR provides an electronic registry system designed to serialize and transparently track offset credits from projects around the globe. ACR also publishes standards, methodologies, protocols and tools for greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, which are all based on International Standards Organization (ISO) 14064. ACR only registers project-based carbon offset tons that are real, additional, permanent and verifiable and comply with American Carbon Registry Standards including meeting our published American Carbon Registry Technical Standard, which outlines requirements for registration of project-based carbon offsets. ACR allows project developers to use methodologies and tools for GHG measurement from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), EPA Climate Leaders and Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) to the extent that they comply with the Registry’s published standards. ACR has published a Forest Carbon Project Standard which includes requirements for afforestation, reforestation, improved forest management and reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) projects. All projects must be third party verified by an accredited ACR verifier or by an accredited verifier from the standards listed above.

Green-e Energy (For RECs Only)

Green-e Energy is the largest certification standard for renewable energy certificates in the United States. Administered by the Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit founded in 1997 to provide real-time solutions to climate change, the Green-e Energy certification is designed to promote the development of new renewable energy sources while providing consumer protection services.

• Eligible energy sources include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro (under select circumstances), biomass (under select circumstances), biodiesel, and fuel cells (provided the hydrogen was produced from renewable sources).
• Only new sources, or those that began operation after January 1, 1997 are eligible.
• Energy that is being used to meet state or federal mandates cannot be certified Green-e unless the facility is producing energy above and beyond the amount required by the mandate.
• Eligible renewable energy can be sold as such once and only once.
• Marketers and utilities offering Green-e certified power undergo a twice-annual marketing compliance review, as well as an annual verification process audit.

Carbonfund.org supports Green-e Certified Renewable Energy Certificates for our commercial partners. Visit here.

Green-e Energy’s complete set of standards can be downloaded here.

Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards

The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards, the name for the certification developed by the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), are exactly what they say: a comprehensive set of standards that take into account a land-based carbon reduction project’s impact on the climate, local community, and regional biodiversity.

Released in 2005 and updated in 2008, the standards were developed through a broad partnership between the nonprofit and private environmental communities. The partnership includes world-class organizations such as Conservation International, Rainforest Alliance, The Nature Conservancy and CARE.

The CCBS certification provides project managers with a practical tool to evaluate and develop land-based carbon reduction projects. The certification requires developers to go beyond what is required of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or another carbon accounting standard like the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) by generating positive community and biodiversity benefits. Projects from all over the world are eligible and all land-use activities are covered, including reforestation and agricultural carbon sequestration. More than 150 projects around the world are under development using the CCB Standards.

The full Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards can be viewed here.

Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)

The Voluntary Carbon Standard is the result of more than two years of consultation headed by some of the most internationally respected groups in the field, including The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association and the World Economic Forum. The standard is one of the newest and most comprehensive to date.

The most recent set of standards, known as VCS Program Guidelines 2007.1 was released in November 2008. In addition to providing its own set of rigorous standards, VCS is building international consensus by reviewing other existing standards and endorsing them as approved VCS programs. To date, approved VCS programs include the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the UNFCCC’s Joint Implementation (JI). The Californian Climate Action Registry is currently undergoing the approval process for becoming an approved program.

VCS-certified offsets must be real, additional, measurable, permanent, and independently verified. The certification is designed to standardize and bring transparency to the voluntary carbon offset market, as well as create a trusted and tradable offset credit, called a Voluntary Carbon Unit.

VCS’s complete methodologies can be viewed here.

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