Core Carbon Principles (CCPs): A Global Standard for High-Integrity Carbon Credits - Integrity Council

The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are a global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits that set rigorous thresholds on disclosure and sustainable development. Developed with input from hundreds of organizations throughout the voluntary carbon market, the CCPs provide a credible and rigorous means of identifying high-integrity carbon credits that create real, verifiable climate impact, based on the latest science and best practice.\n\nHigh-integrity carbon credits can unlock urgently needed finance to reduce and remove billions of tonnes of emissions. The world is on track for 2.6\u00b0C warming by 2100. We need every tool available working at full speed to secure a liveable future. A high-integrity voluntary carbon market is one important tool that can help finance the transition to 1.5\u00b0C.\n\nThe 10 Core Carbon Principles\n\nWhat makes a carbon credit \u2018high integrity\u2019? In consultation with stakeholders across the market, the Integrity Council has developed 10 Core Carbon Principles which set out the key principles for high-integrity carbon credits:\n\nA. Governance\n\nEffective governance\nThe carbon-crediting program shall have effective program governance to ensure transparency, accountability, continuous improvement and the overall quality of carbon credits.\n\nTracking\nThe carbon-crediting program shall operate or make use of a registry to uniquely identify, record and track mitigation activities and carbon credits issued to ensure credits can be identified securely and unambiguously.\n\nTransparency\nThe carbon-crediting program shall provide comprehensive and transparent information on all credited mitigation activities. The information shall be publicly available in electronic format and shall be accessible to non-specialised audiences, to enable scrutiny of mitigation activities.\n\nRobust independent third-party validation and verification\nThe carbon-crediting program shall have program-level requirements for robust independent third-party validation and verification of mitigation activities.\n\nB. Emissions Impact\n\nAdditionality\nThe greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be additional, i.e., they would not have occurred in the absence of the incentive created by carbon credit revenues. \n\nPermanence\nThe GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be permanent or, where there is a risk of reversal, there shall be measures in place to address those risks and compensate reversals.\n\nRobust quantification of emission reductions and removals\nThe GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall be robustly quantified, based on conservative approaches, completeness and scientific methods. \n\nNo double counting\nThe GHG emission reductions or removals from the mitigation activity shall not be double counted, i.e., they shall only be counted once towards achieving mitigation targets or goals. Double counting covers double issuance, double claiming, and double use.\n\nC. Sustainable Development\n\nSustainable development benefits and safeguards\nThe carbon-crediting program shall have clear guidance, tools and compliance procedures to ensure mitigation activities conform with or go beyond widely established industry best practices on social and environmental safeguards while delivering positive sustainable development impacts. \n\nContribution toward net zero transition\nThe mitigation activity shall avoid locking-in levels of GHG emissions, technologies or carbon-intensive practices that are incompatible with the objective of achieving net zero GHG emissions by mid-century. \n\nThe Program-Level Assessment Framework\n\nThe CCPs are operationalised through the Assessment Framework, which provides rigorous criteria and decision tools for each principle. Carbon credits will receive the CCP label only if both the carbon-crediting program that issued them and the credit category are assessed by the Integrity Council and meet its criteria for high-integrity (climate, environmental and social) set out in the CCPs.\n\nThe Program-Level Assessment Framework ensures that the Integrity Council can consistently assess whether carbon-crediting programs meet the criteria outlined in the Core Carbon Principles.\n\nThe Credit-Level Assessment Framework, which will be released mid-year, will set out the criteria that the credit categories must meet.