ICVCM Launches Work Program to Strengthen Carbon Credit Permanence Requirements

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market has launched its second Continuous Improvement Work Program on Permanence, focused on improving how reversal risk is assessed, monitored, and compensated across carbon project types. The program builds on six recommendations published in May 2025 from the first permanence work program.

The new Continuous Improvement Work Program on Permanence: Monitoring and Compensation will address three workstreams: strengthening pooled buffer reserves through standardised stress-test protocols, developing standardised definitions and guidance on project-level risk assessment, and exploring novel compensation mechanisms including permanence trusts and insurance products. The program follows findings from its predecessor — published May 2025 — which recommended standardising reversal definitions, clarifying liability for monitoring cessation, piloting stress tests for buffer reserves, and exploring an innovation sandbox for new permanence mechanisms. Applications for the working group remained open until March 20, 2026.

Permanence has emerged as a central integrity challenge in voluntary carbon markets, where current approaches vary significantly across standards and registries in how risk is classified, how liability for reversals is distributed, and how long monitoring periods are required. The CIWP aims to develop solutions applicable across all carbon project types — forest, agriculture, and technology-based — while accommodating diverse geographic and policy contexts. Alexia Kelly, ICVCM Governing Board member and co-facilitator, stated that stress-testing buffer reserve pools and developing standardised reversal risk assessment tools would be pivotal outcomes for the market in the coming year.

The ICVCM noted that entities including the UNFCCC Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, the European Union, and various NGOs and research organisations are independently exploring aspects of durability, liability, and compensation. The work program will coordinate with these initiatives to align recommendations with the latest science and regulatory direction. Experts accepted to join the working group can expect to hear back from the ICVCM in Q2 2026. The program's outputs will feed directly into future refinements of the CCP Assessment Framework, the global quality threshold for voluntary carbon credits.

Key figure — March 20, 2026 application deadline for the CIWP working group