The Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (IC-VCM) was formed in late 2021 by the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets. The IC-VCM is an independent governance body, tasked with assuring supply-side integrity of the voluntary carbon market: the integrity of methodologies, and projects themselves.
Following an initial period of consultation, the IC-VCM launched its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) and Assessment Framework (AF) in March 2023, with a first review of the CCPs and AF expected to commence in 2025. The CCP label is intended to serve as a mark of high integrity for eligible projects and methodologies. To earn the label, a credit must be compliant with the CCPs as they relate to both the project and the methodology, this ensures a double safeguarding of a credit’s integrity.
The CCPs are centered around 3 pillars: Governance, Emissions Impact, and Sustainable Development. Under each pillar are several related characteristics, against which projects are assessed. These include:
Governance: effective governance, tracking, transparency, and robust independent third-party validation and verification.
Emissions Impact: additionality, permanence, robust quantification of emission reductions and removals, and no double-counting.
Sustainable Development: sustainable development benefits and safeguards, and contribution towards net zero transition.
Further information on how the CCPs are defined can be found in the video below.
The CCP label is intended to support claims made under the demand side-focused Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative.
The IC-VCM undertakes assessment of both carbon crediting programs and carbon credit categories for adherence to the CCP Assessment Framework. Once assessments are complete, Programs deemed to be CCP-Eligible will be able to issue CCP-Approved carbon credits from CCP-Approved Categories of carbon credits.
