Core Carbon Principles (CCP)

In 2021, the taskforce decided to participate with the large number of organizations and thought leaders seeking to drive integrity and scale for the VEMs through the Taskforce for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM). The TSVCM’s findings and recommendations have been used to launch the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM), to carry the work forward into practice. Out of these efforts came proposed Core Carbon Principles (CCP). The taskforce has not formally adopted or agreed with the CCPs or the other recommendations of the ICVCM. We encourage the ICVCM to collaborate with this taskforce.

As of this writing, the CCPs are still open to public comment and their future is uncertain and often controversial.

For purposes of demonstrating potential alignment, however, the taskforce has taken our first pass at converting the CCPs into a set of properties or attributes that can be attached to tokenized carbon credits in anticipation of their adoption. The benefit of isolating these attributes into a dedicated CCP property-set is that it allows for them to be updated, or even replaced independently by a different set of attributes, if the need arises.

• The CCPs in public consultation are Additionality, Mitigation Activity Information, no double counting, Permanence, Program Governance, Registry, Robust Independent 3rd party verification, Quantification of emission reductions and removals, Sustainable development goal (SDG) impacts and safeguards, and transition towards net-zero emissions. • We cannot provide an open standard approach for these CCPs in a single property-set, but we can reflect them using a combination of a property-set paired with token definitions to represent carbon offsets and removals.

The CCP property-set example can reflect the values developed by the ICVCM as well as other properties that all carbon offsets or removals would have. This means that tokenization efforts can include attachment of this, or other market best practice property-sets, to different template specifications.

EXAMPLE: Developing a Core Carbon Property-Set

• Asset Id: A string that can contain the issuing registry’s master id or serial number that resides on their registry system. Could be empty or the same as the token’s id if not needed.

• Issuance Date: The date the token was issued.

• Vintage: Refers to the year that the emissions reduction or removal took place or will take place.

• Generation Type: Generated, Ex-post or Ex-ante, where Generated indicates near real-time issuance typically reserved for high-precision activities that can be verified and issued in shorter time frames; Ex-post is based on verified evidence and factored based on historical results; Ex-ante are forward estimates of reduction or removals.

• Quality Standard: The quality standard used to determine and issue an ecological benefit token. These can be a voluntary or compliance/regulatory standard.

• Mitigation Activity: The mitigation activity that is used to generate the ecological benefit token, a combination of:

       o Category: Reduction or Removal

       o Method: Biological, Technological, or Both

• Durability: This is the recommendation that replaces permanence for CCPs as it includes the risk profile and not simply true or false. [see Durability]

• Replacement: This is set if this token replaces a revoked or adjusted token, i.e., a reversal event that requires a credit be replaced with one from a reserve pool.

• Paris Agreement Compliance: This is set if using Paris Agreement specific attributes:

       o Corresponding Adjustment: None, Paris Agreement Compliance, or Pending

       o Letter of Approval: A verified link to the jurisdiction’s approval for CA.

• Quantified SDG Impacts: The Co-benefits or SDGs with quantified impacts.

• Adaptation of Co-benefits: The adaptation of co-benefits consistent with the host country’s priorities, consistent with the provisions under Article 7.1 of the Paris Agreement.