Latest News

Carbon project developers demand a change in the complaints procedure

After several high-profile incidents that have eroded trust in the industry, dozens of carbon project developers want the registries who set standards for voluntary carbon markets to revamp their complaint procedures.

Many environmental groups have criticized the voluntary carbon market for generating "junk credits" that allow companies to "greenwash".

Industry advocates, however, say that complaints about certain projects have led some registries, such as the U.S. based Verra, to prevent them from generating credit. This unfairly damages the industry as a sector and holds up funding sources for environmental and climate initiatives.

The Project Developers Forum (PDF), which represents over 60 carbon projects in Kenya, Singapore and elsewhere, has said that current complaint procedures don't offer developers an effective way to defend themselves against any allegations of wrongdoing, before they are made public.

Nick Marshall, the chair of the forum, said: "You can see that many projects are suspended, and they become public very quickly." "Integrity cannot be negotiable. But how we respond to allegations and surface them is equally important."

Marshall said that a few bad apples were doing irreparable damage to the reputation of the industry and that developers who knew about wrongdoing did not come forward, because the whistleblowing process was not sufficiently anonymous.

He said that the group had asked Verra, a leading registry, to create a policy with a secure submission form for its website. This would allow anonymous sharing of information regarding possible integrity issues.

Verra said in a press release that a formal, robust complaint process has been in place since the beginning of 2024. It "contains provisions that already address the concerns raised by the PD Forum".

Verra has rejected 37 low-emissions rice cultivation projects in China after a review of quality. (Reporting and editing by Virginia Furness)

(source: Reuters)