The first year of South Africa’s newly instituted carbon tax ran from June 2019 to June 2020, and the deadline for taxed entities in South Africa to satisfy their tax obligations or to make use of the allowance provisions enabled by the Tax Act, is October 29, 2020. (See here for an overview of how Verra plans to support the development of projects in South Africa as well as additional details about the tax and the carbon offset mechanism.)

An important milestone was reached last Friday, 9 October, when the Carbon Offset Administration System (COAS) approved the first projects that are eligible to generate carbon credits that can be used in place of the tax payment.

Verra recently published a guidance document to provide detailed instructions to account holders who wish to retire credits on the Verra Registry for listing them on the registry of South Africa’s Carbon Offset Administration System (COAS). The guidance document includes a step-by-step overview of the process; it also lists the information to be submitted on the Verra Registry to ensure that the Certificate of VCU Retirement and the Retired Credits entry on the Verra Registry include all details required by the COAS.

Finally, as part of its Data and Insights series, Verra just released the inaugural issue on South Africa. It includes an overview of VCS activity in South Africa to date, including details about project types, VCU issuances, and other interesting trends.