Verra, the world’s leading standard setter for climate action and sustainable development, has published updated fee schedules for its Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards (CCBS) Program, Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) Program, and Plastic Program.
The revised fee schedules will ensure that Verra can continue to deliver high-integrity greenhouse gas and sustainable development crediting programs that meet the demands of rapidly growing markets, while addressing the operational and financial needs of the organization.
These fee changes will be implemented in two stages. Changes to fees not related to unit issuances or labeling (e.g., account maintenance fees, VCS pipeline listing request fees, and VCS project registration request review fees) will take effect 1 May 2023. Changes related to unit issuances or labeling (e.g., flat fees for VCU issuance levies, CCBS labels, and SD VISta labels ) will take effect 1 July 2023.
Verra is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The fees listed in the VCS Program Fee Schedule, v4.3 (PDF); CCB Program Fee Schedule, v3.5 (PDF); SD VISta Program Fee Schedule, v1.2 (PDF); and Plastic Program Fee Schedule, v1.2 (PDF) cover the costs associated with administering, maintaining, and developing Verra programs. The new fee schedules cover revisions to existing fees and include new fees for services that Verra provides but that were not covered in the previous versions. The new fee schedules also include simplified issuance and label fee structures, making it significantly easier for project proponents to estimate the costs of operating their projects.
“Verra continues to adapt to meet the demands of rapidly expanding environmental and social markets. The fee changes will ensure we can support the growing number of requests we receive for all of our programs by enabling us to continue to grow our team, streamline and accelerate our processes, enhance oversight, and introduce new technologies.”
This is the first significant change to the VCS Program Fee Schedule since 2015 and to the CCB Program Fee Schedule since 2020, and the second change to the SD VISta and Plastic Program Fee Schedules since their launches in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
The new fee schedules include the following changes:
- The VCS Program Fee Schedule, v4.3 (PDF) replaces the previously tiered issuance schedule with a consistent issuance fee of $0.20 per Verified Carbon Unit (VCU) to better capture Verra’s costs of reviewing verification and issuance requests. In line with this change, the CCBS and SD VISta Programs also replace their tiered labeling fee schedules with flat rates of $0.07 per label (CCBS) and $0.05 per label (SD VISta).
- The VCS Program Fee Schedule, v4.3 (PDF) streamlines some of the invoicing processes by replacing the Project Registration fee with a Project Registration Review fee of $2,500, due before registration review begins and intended to cover the cost of review.
- All revised fee schedules are designed to cover key parts of the process, such as pipeline listing and account maintenance. For projects undergoing verification with multiple Verra programs, Verra has eliminated any retroactive labeling fees that posed an administrative burden to these projects.
- For validation/verification body (VVB) fees, the new fee schedules will include a tiered system of annual fees based on the number of Verra programs the VVBs are approved for. The purpose of these fees is to more adequately cover Verra’s costs of VVB training and oversight. The new fee schedules also list an additional fee of $10,000 for the process of ascertaining whether a suspended VVB is fit to be reinstated.
Verra has also published Errata and Clarification to the VCS Program Rules and Requirements (PDF) that reflects changes to the VCS Registration and Issuance Process, v4.3 that are related to this fee schedule update.
