Verra has released a clarification (PDF) to the effective date of versions 4.1 and 4.2 of the Non-Permanence Risk Tool (NPRT) for Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) projects. The clarification allows a project to use version 4.0 of the AFOLU NPRT for verification approval if it meets the following criteria:

  1. The project requested registration before August 29, 2023
  2.  The project is requesting verification approval only for vintages of 2022 and earlier

Project proponents in Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program use the AFOLU NPRT to assess risks and determine buffer pool contributions for their projects. Version 4.1 of the AFOLU NPRT was released on August 30, 2023, and was updated to version 4.2 on October 12, 2023.

This clarification enables a more seamless transition for projects that requested registration and prepared for verification approval for vintages of 2022 and earlier when version 4.0 of the AFOLU NPRT was still current.

Only version 4.2 of the AFOLU NPRT meets the assessment criteria of the Core Carbon Principles (CCP) Assessment Framework published by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM). Projects meeting the above criteria may still choose to use version 4.2 of the AFOLU NPRT if they seek to obtain CCP labels for the Verified Carbon Units they generate.

Eligible projects electing to apply AFOLU NPRT, v4.0 must follow the guidance provided in the clarification document.