Verra has published a summary of comments received during the public consultation on proposed Verified Carbon Unit (VCU) labels, along with Verra’s responses.
Labels meet the increasing demand in the voluntary carbon market to identify VCUs that correspond to unique market preferences. Verra’s market label vetting process ensures that new proposed labels highlight specific attributes while fungibility across all VCUs is maintained. Verra will continue to take stakeholder feedback into consideration in the future development of VCU labels.
Below is a summary of the VCU labels Verra consulted on and the decisions Verra reached:
| LABEL TYPE | DECISION |
|---|---|
| Reductions and Removals | Verra recognizes the need for both emission reductions and removals to achieve Paris Agreement targets. Stakeholders also expressed a strong desire for these labels.
Verra therefore plans to launch labels and associated Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program updates to enable differentiation between reduction credits and removal credits in the next update to the VCS Program in mid-2023. The labels and associated registry features may be further refined in Version 5 of the VCS Program. |
| Authorization for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement | Verra plans to launch an Article 6 authorization label for VCUs and associated VCS Program updates in mid-2023.
The labels and associated registry features may be further refined in Version 5 of the VCS Program. |
| Activity type and sustainable development benefits | Verra will not move ahead with detailed activity type or sustainable development labels at this time, based on stakeholder feedback. Instead, future VCS Program updates will improve access to detailed sustainable development and project activity data to address the diversity of stakeholder interests. |
We sincerely appreciate all comments and thank all who responded for providing their feedback.
For any questions, contact programupdates@verra.org
