As you well know, the eyes of the international carbon community are focused on California as the emissions trading system enabled by AB32 continues to ramp up. With this in mind, we at the VCS are excited to announce that the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has approved the VCS as an Offset Project Registry (OPR) in the Golden State.

We’re ready to hit the ground running. VCS staff are fully trained in ARB protocols, verification procedures and systems; as such, we are ready and able to register projects and issue credits within this growing system. The recent inclusion of the mine methane protocol (based on two VCS methodologies) fills us with confidence that we will continue to play an important role in the consideration of new protocols. Key among these hopes lies the potential inclusion of international REDD credits using the VCS jurisdictional approach, which is in line with the recommendations of the REDD Offsets Working (ROW) Group.

Our expertise allows us to offer project developers a cost-effective way of registering projects and issuing credits within the California system. We’ll be hosting a webinar on Tuesday, 9 September 2014 at 10:00am Pacific Daylight Time (1:00pm Eastern Daylight Time) to lay out the pricing structure of the VCS OPR and walk you through how our system works. However, you need not wait for the webinar to get your VCS California account up and running. We are waiving all enrollment fees for the remainder of 2014 and invite you to submit an application today!

One key element of our support for the California program will be the hiring of a Director of North American Compliance Markets, to be based in Northern California, and who will be instrumental to our (and your) success in this exciting market. As you can imagine, the Director of North American Compliance Markets is a key position for the VCS, so I would encourage you to look at the job description and forward it along to anyone you think might be interested, or, of course, feel free to apply yourself.

California remains one of the shining bright spots within the international carbon community, and on behalf of all of the VCS team, we look forward to working both with ARB, and with you, to ensure that this ambitious program meets its goals. In so doing, we hope to bring the lessons learned around the world, and that we ultimately get what we all want: a low carbon economy that powers a cleaner, safer world for our children and grandchildren.