(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) announced a new collaborative effort to simplify the process for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction and removal projects seeking to be approved under both standards. Adding CCB certification to VCS agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) projects has long been proven to add significant value to the robust carbon accounting rules embedded within the VCS. Today’s announcement provides project developers with a single set of templates to navigate both approval processes simultaneously, potentially speeding up the approval process by months and significantly reducing the time and effort needed to obtain approval under both VCS and CCB. Thesenew provisions are ready for immediate use.
“By integrating the documentation needed for projects to become both VCS and CCB certified, we have streamlined a critical part of the process and made it easier and cheaper to develop projects that both reduce GHG emissions and have demonstrable sustainable development benefits,” said VCS Chief Executive Officer David Antonioli. “Partnerships like this one are key to reducing transaction costs and will help developers navigate the approval processes more effectively.”
“As more forest carbon offsets from REDD projects become available on the carbon market, it will be an important distinction for them to have been verified to the Climate, Community & Biodiversity – or CCB – Standards, which assures that the projects have been implemented using best practices for community engagement and have generated measurable benefits for local communities and biodiversity as well as for the climate,” said Dr. Joanna Durbin, Director of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance. “Combining VCS and CCB certification provides a very comprehensive way to ensure quality of the carbon credits – bundling the two leading standards is a big step in the right direction.”
Verification against both VCS and CCB enables Verified Carbon Units to be tagged with a ‘CCB label’, a permanent marker added to each credit’s unique carbon registry identification code that makes it easier for investors and offset buyers to identify credits generated by projects that meet the rigorous requirements of both VCS and CCB Standards.
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Founded in 2005 by the Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association, the World Economic Forum, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Verified Carbon Standard has become one of the world’s most widely used carbon accounting standards. VCS has revolutionized the market developing trusted and innovative tools, as well as pioneering efforts to develop standardized methods that will streamline the project approval process, reduce transaction costs and enhance transparency. Across the world, projects using the VCS Standard have issued more than 100 million credits.
The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) is a partnership of international NGOs that created the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards to enable identification of projects that adopt best practices to deliver robust and credible greenhouse gas reductions while also delivering net positive benefits to local communities and biodiversity. www.climate-standards.org The CCBA members — which include Conservation International, CARE, Rainforest Alliance, The Nature Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Society — are all leading the development and implementation of pioneering forest carbon activities demonstrating how effective partnerships and integrated design can deliver significant multiple benefits.