Notice

Raising integrity in the voluntary carbon and nature market - notice

Published 15 November 2024

© Crown copyright 2024

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/raising-integrity-in-the-voluntary-carbon-and-nature-market/raising-integrity-in-the-voluntary-carbon-and-nature-market-notice

The UK government sees a clear and appropriate role for the responsible use of high-integrity carbon and nature credits by companies or other organisations that wish to do so as part of their climate and nature strategies.

In line with this, government will issue a public consultation, in early 2025, to seek views on the steps the government could take to raise the integrity and use of Voluntary Carbon and Nature Markets as mechanisms to support achievement and enhancement of our domestic and global climate and nature goals.

  1. The consultation will seek to:
    1. 1. Clarify expectations for the standards that need to be met to ensure high integrity markets. This will seek views on proposals that the UK government endorses:
      1. a. ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles and Assessment Framework as providing minimum standards for voluntary carbon credit quality.
      2. b. VCMI’s Claims Code of Practice as providing best practice for corporate claims.
    2. 2. Invite responses on:
      1. a. how endorsement of these outputs could be reflected in guidance, policy and potentially regulation
      2. b. the market architecture that could embed and scale high-integrity practice, including potential governance models, regulatory approaches, and supporting infrastructure.
      3. c. conditions that could apply to the limited use of high-integrity carbon credits towards a proportion of Scope 3 emissions, for example through VCMI’s beta Scope 3 claim
    3. 3. Further elaborate the 6 overarching UK government Principles for Carbon and Nature Market Integrity (‘Principles’) for the supply and use of voluntary credits to support common understanding of good practice, and welcoming comments on their proposed implementation.

The UK government and devolved governments will work together to ensure that implementation arrangements are designed to reinforce the goals, policies and frameworks that they have already set out for growing high integrity green investment in all parts of the UK.

Back to top