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We often hear carbon credits marketed as ¡°high quality,¡± but what does that mean? The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has the potential to make a significant impact on the global initiative to mitigate climate change. However, within the past few years, there have been rising concerns about the legitimacy of carbon credits due to greenwashing and carbon piracy. As a result, many rating organizations, guidance documents, and standards have been established to help differentiate good and inferior quality credits.

Our Nature-based Solutions (NbS) experts discuss some of the common criteria for high-quality credits and how to evaluate them. For the VCM to make a meaningful impact, credits must account for permanence, represent actions that go above and beyond what otherwise would have occurred, and, at a minimum, cause no net harm to nearby communities. In this white paper, we highlight a few examples of the high-level criteria used to assess the quality of a carbon credit and showcase some of the benefits and challenges associated with different projects.