Verra

Today, we celebrate the landmark statement from the U.S. government underlining the importance of the voluntary carbon market (VCM).    We know high-integrity #CarbonCredits give companies and emitters the ability to do more, and to do it faster than cutting internal emissions alone. We also know companies that buy carbon credits through the VCM are leaders in climate action. The White House has now made the case for the VCM even stronger: the time has come for this climate solution. Verra is the leading standards setter in the VCM, and we continue to promote rigor, transparency, and vigilance for science-backed and consensus-driven standards. Verra is committed to certifying high-quality projects and issuing high-integrity credits that represent real, additional, and permanent emission reductions and reward co-benefits, while also including critical social and environmental safeguards. Our core mission is to unlock investment in tangible climate action. We applaud the United States for supporting this key climate action tool. Read our full statement: https://bit.ly/4ebUYLl #Verra #CarbonMarkets #ClimateChange #StandardsMatter

❗ An estimated annual investment of US$700 billion is needed to achieve the long-term goals and short-term targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Between now and 2030, wealthy nations currently plan to provide only US$30 billion annually to economically developing countries to support GBF implementation.   🌱 Nature credits are an innovative financial tool proposed that can help provide critically needed private-sector funding for biodiversity initiatives. 🌿 Verra is currently developing the Nature Framework under its Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) Program. The Nature Framework is an asset methodology that will allow projects to quantify biodiversity outcomes and generate Nature Credits, driving finance to high-quality nature conservation and restoration activities. 🗓 The launch of the framework is expected in late 2024! ➡ Ready to learn more? Check out our new flyer, which includes everything you need to know about the development timeline, eligible activity types, Nature Credits, and key project requirements. #Verra #Biodiversity #StandardsMatter #Conservation

🔉 Verra has published Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Methodology Revision VMR0012 Production of Geopolymer Cement, v1.0. This is a revision to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) methodology AM0125: Production of geopolymer cement, v1.1. ➡ The publication of VMR0012 expands the VCS Program’s impact by enabling a broader range of projects in the cement sector to generate carbon credits and access climate finance. ➡ Read more: https://bit.ly/3zEn9Cs #Verra #ClimateAction #StandardsMatter #ClimateChange

Judith Simon, Verra’s president and interim CEO, has been selected to attend the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program’s Aspen ESG Summit 2024 next week! Themed "The Transformation Agenda", the summit will bring together over 150 other sustainability and social impact leaders for this invitation-only gathering, which will include interactive working groups, facilitated dialogue opportunities, and speaker sessions. Participants will explore sustainable innovation, discuss implementing operational strategies at speed and scale, and rethink how to engage employees, customers, and other stakeholders. #Verra #ClimateAction

Verra has published a revision to a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) methodology for thermal applications, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program Methodology Revision VMR0011 Switch from Non-Renewable Biomass for Thermal Applications by the User VMR0011 includes the following changes to the CDM methodology: ✅ Standardizing key parameters, like the fraction of non-renewable biomass (fNRB) and adjusting for any leakage of non-renewable woody biomass, to ensure consistency across VCS Program methodologies ✅ Strengthening the methodology’s integrity by introducing a discount factor to account for uncertainty if fNRB is determined using CDM TOOL30 ✅ Establishing the leakage adjustment factor at validation Read more: https://bit.ly/3RNKvMr #Verra #StandardsMatter #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

Verra is inactivating its VCS Program methodology for quantifying N2O emission reductions in agricultural crops through nitrogen fertilizer rate reduction (VM0022). Verra is scoping updated nitrogen management and N2O reduction approaches and guidance as part of a major revision to VM0042, its Improved Agricultural Land Management (IALM) methodology. To learn more and to access a pre-consultation survey about the upcoming revision to VM0042, please check out the full announcement: https://bit.ly/3RNi69a #Verra #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #StandardsMatter

Vote for Verra in Environmental Finance's VCM Rankings! 📢 Environmental Finance’s 2024 Voluntary Carbon Markets Rankings are now open! This survey identifies voluntary carbon market (VCM) leaders, including project developers, traders, and service providers. The VCM is a key tool for advancing critical finance to climate mitigation activities that have myriad additional benefits. ➡️ Leaders have an important role in this market – and we need to know who they are and what they do! 🏆 Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, the world’s largest voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) crediting program, has won the award for “Best GHG Crediting Programme” (formerly “Best Voluntary Carbon Standard”) ten times since 2012. Additionally, the Verra Registry has been voted “Best Registry Provider” every year since that category was added in 2021. 📆 The survey is open until Friday, July 26. We hope you will once again show your support for Verra this year. Cast your vote: https://bit.ly/4ctjHsY

Verra and FOREDOR are offering another educational course on carbon markets in the Latin American region! This course, which runs from July 22 through August 26, will offer a comprehensive overview of how to register a forest-based project in Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard Program. It will also cover information about voluntary and compliance carbon markets, and transaction procedures in both markets. Classes will be offered in Spanish and English; simultaneous translation into Spanish will be offered for classes taught in English. The course speakers have extensive expertise in carbon markets and include consultants, representatives from the private sector, and academics from a broad range of geographic backgrounds (Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia). Registration closes on July 15, 2024. For more information, please see our full announcement: https://bit.ly/4bzGJNE #Verra #CarbonMarkets #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

📄Verra's Statement on the New CCQI Scores for REDD Credits By Naomi Swickard, senior director, REDD+ program development and innovation Today, the Carbon Credit Quality Initiative (CCQI) released its latest forestry scores that evaluate the quality risks associated with avoided planned and unplanned deforestation projects. 🌳 Keeping forests standing, in the face of overwhelming global pressure to cut them down, is one of the great challenges of our time. We stand behind some of the choices that CCQI flags as needing further refinement, and we hope this assessment sparks the kind of vigorous discussion necessary on our collective journey toward impact. Notably, CCQI calls for changes to two key elements of Verra’s new REDD methodology that are its key features, not bugs: 🌳 Verra’s methodology was explicitly designed to ensure projects align and are consistent with the global accounting approaches. ➡ The methodology uses a top-down, risk-based allocation approach that is consistent with the latest methods for national accounting and inventories. Any path to protecting forests at scale must be able to align with host country reporting to the UNFCCC. 🌳 Verra’s methodology assumes it will take hard work, and investment, to reduce deforestation rates worldwide. ➡ The CCQI report claims that the approach used by the new methodology will lead to overestimation of emission reductions by asserting that countries are on a trajectory to reduce deforestation to zero, apparently without investment. Verra believes that this assumption is misguided and that there is no declining trend in deforestation without investment to deliver it. More, where there are (most welcome!) declining deforestation trends, the baseline will also become more conservative through the regular updates included in the methodology – as is consistent with national approaches. 📝 Read our complete response: https://bit.ly/3XMejwy 🌱 We look forward to continuing this discussion with stakeholders across the voluntary carbon market. As Verra’s new methodology comes fully online and baselines are set for key jurisdictions this quarter, we believe we have charted a critical path to unlocking impact at scale. #Verra #StandardsMatter #ClimateAction #CarbonMarkets

📢 Last chance to submit feedback! 📅 The deadline to participate in the pre-consultation survey on the major revision to VM0042 Methodology for Improved Agricultural Land Management is July 5!