ICVCM Welcomes UK Government's Voluntary Carbon Market Principles

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market welcomed the UK government's publication of principles for voluntary carbon and nature market integrity, describing them as closely aligned with the Core Carbon Principles. The UK joins the US government, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore in showing support for the CCPs.

The UK government's principles address both what constitutes a high-integrity carbon credit and how such credits should be used — as a complement to rapid value chain decarbonisation, rather than a substitute for direct emissions cuts. The Integrity Council noted that government alignment of this kind helps bring consistency to the market, ensuring carbon crediting programmes are well-governed and produce credits representing genuine greenhouse gas reductions and removals.

The ICVCM welcomed the UK's decision to consult on formally endorsing the Core Carbon Principles, noting that the CCPs represent the first independent global standard for high-integrity carbon credits. The council stated that in a climate emergency, high-integrity carbon credits can mobilise private finance at scale for projects to reduce and remove billions of tonnes of emissions that would not otherwise be viable. The UK's alignment adds to a growing list of governments and regulators supporting the CCPs as a reference framework.

The statement reinforced the ICVCM's broader advocacy that high-integrity carbon markets can channel significant climate finance to countries in the Global South. The UK announcement came as the ICVCM was seeking to broaden the adoption of the CCPs across compliance and voluntary carbon markets globally, ahead of COP29 where the article 6 framework and its relationship to voluntary markets was expected to feature prominently in negotiations.

Key figure — Five governments and regulators have now aligned with ICVCM's Core Carbon Principles