The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has published its latest assessment decisions, approving three additional carbon crediting methodologies to use the Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label, with two receiving conditional approval.
The ICVCM has granted full CCP approval to Isometric’s ISM Reforestation Protocol v1.1, while conditionally approving a methane-reduction methodology from Gold Standard and an improved forest management methodology from ACR.
Isometric: ISM Reforestation Protocol v1.1
Published in October 2025, the ISM Reforestation Protocol v1.1 sets out requirements for quantifying carbon removals from reforestation activities under the Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (ARR) category. The methodology applies to land previously under forest cover and aims to increase long-term forest area.
The ICVCM assessment found that the methodology met all relevant criteria under the CCP Assessment Framework, leading to approval without conditions. While no credits have yet been issued, around 20 project developers are registered under the protocol. Isometric expects to issue more than 4 million credits annually by 2030, all of which will be eligible for CCP labelling.
Gold Standard: Rice cultivation methane methodology
Gold Standard’s “Methodology for methane emission reduction by adjusted water management practice in rice cultivation v1.0”, published in July 2023, has become the first rice cultivation methane avoidance methodology to receive CCP approval.
The decision comes amid growing focus on agricultural methane, with studies estimating rice paddies contribute around 7% of global methane emissions, much of it generated in Asia.
The methodology has been approved subject to conditions related to additionality demonstration and updated accounting for soil organic carbon loss risk. Approximately 50,000 credits have already been issued under the methodology, but none currently meet the first approval condition and will therefore not be eligible for CCP labels.
Gold Standard estimates that up to 3.2 million credits could be issued over the next five years, primarily from projects in India, with additional activity across Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal and Thailand. Credits issued in compliance with the conditions will be eligible for CCP labelling.
ACR: Improved Forest Management on non-federal US forestlands
ACR’s IFM on Non-Federal US Forestlands v2.0 has also received conditional CCP approval. The methodology is an earlier version of v2.1, which was approved in August 2025 subject to leakage and baseline conditions.
Under the latest decision, version 2.0 is approved provided either a dynamic baseline evaluation is verified using ACR’s approved tool, or removal credits are generated in line with the methodology’s specified equation. Around 2.7 million credits are expected to become immediately eligible for CCP labels, from a total issued volume of 13.3 million credits.
Growing pool of CCP-labelled credits
Since issuing its first programme decisions in March 2024, the ICVCM has approved eight carbon crediting programmes as CCP-eligible, including ACR, ART TREES, Gold Standard, Isometric, Puro.Earth and Verra.
To date, the ICVCM Governing Board has assessed 60 methodologies, approving 38 and rejecting 22 for failing to meet the Assessment Framework’s requirements. Most approvals have applied to new methodology versions with low issued volumes, reflecting what the council describes as a “high bar” for CCP alignment.
Based on assessment decisions so far, an estimated 105 million credits have been approved to carry the CCP label, according to data from MSCI. Of these, around 52 million remain available in the market, while the remainder have been retired or cancelled.
The Integrity Council is an independent, non-profit governance body established to strengthen integrity and confidence in the voluntary carbon market and support credible climate action.
