Integrity Council Approves Three REDD+ Carbon Credit Methodologies

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market approved three REDD+ methodologies for issuing high-integrity carbon credits for reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. Credits issued under these approved methodologies will be eligible for the CCP label from early 2025.

The ICVCM approved three methodologies under its Core Carbon Principles framework: ART's REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) v2.0, Verra's VM0048 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation v1.0, and Verra's Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) Framework v4.1. Nine jurisdictions in the ART TREES pathway have the potential to issue 123 million credits, while 21 projects under VM0048 could issue approximately 300 million credits during their first crediting period.

The approvals mark a significant step for the voluntary carbon market, as REDD+ credits represent a major category of nature-based carbon finance. A key reform under VM0048 removes the practice of project developers setting their own baselines: Verra will now establish baselines using jurisdictional deforestation data and risk assessments of specific project areas. This change substantially reduces the risk of over-crediting, a concern that had undermined confidence in older REDD+ methodologies.

Verra's older REDD+ methodologies — VM0006, VM0007, VM0009, VM0015 and VM0037 — were excluded from assessment and cannot receive the CCP label. Projects using these methodologies must transition to VM0048 and undergo a requantification process. Two additional crediting levels of TREES v2.0 remain under assessment, along with clean cookstove methodologies. India and other developing nations with forested landscapes stand to benefit from increased investor confidence in CCP-labelled REDD+ credits.

Key figure — Approximately 300 million credits in development under VM0048 during first crediting period