Verra has initiated its first public consultation on proposed updates to its Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Programme, which will result in version 5 of the programme. The consultation, which is open until 4 November 2024, seeks input on updates aimed at enhancing the integrity, impact, and usability of the VCS Programme. These changes are intended to help the voluntary carbon market scale up climate action, to halve global emissions by 2030.
Key updates under consideration focus on the fundamentals of the VCS Programme, improved data transparency, enhanced environmental and social safeguards, and refined programme scope.
It calls for enabling the issuance of credits using a digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (DMRV) process to accelerate market access, revising requirements for demonstrating additionality (ensuring projects are not required by law or represent a business-as-usual scenario), with options for reassessment and crediting period extensions and updating pipeline listing rules to prove carbon finance was considered before project initiation.
Additionally, inputs are also invited for strengthening buffer pool management procedures to improve the permanence of emissions reductions and removals, enhancing safeguards, including better guidance for reporting on Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring engagement with local stakeholders affected by projects and aligning transfer projects with VCS Programme requirements and phasing out gap validation for projects registered with Verra-approved GHG programs like the Clean Development Mechanism.
Verra is also looking at introducing exclusions for certain project activities, such as limiting renewable energy projects to least-developed countries and adding a new sectoral scope for ocean carbon projects and updating geological carbon sequestration (GCS) requirements to support carbon capture and storage.
Verra began work on VCS Programme version 5 in early 2023, consulting stakeholders and receiving feedback to develop three core objectives: boosting program integrity, ensuring the program’s scope maximises impact, and improving transparency and usability.
This consultation marks the first phase of proposed changes, with future consultations expected to provide more specific updates. Version 5 may be published in phases to allow for quicker implementation of certain awaited updates. In tandem, Verra is working on other initiatives, such as enhancing the Verra Registry, digital tools, and oversight of validation and verification bodies (VVBs), which will support the new version.