Upcoming changes to the Ecologi Impact Shop

FAQs

• Why have the prices changed?

  Prices have changed because carbon markets are dynamic and can fluctuate based on various factors, including supply, demand, and regulatory updates. We’re adjusting our pricing to stay aligned with the current market conditions and to ensure that we remain responsive to the latest developments. This helps us continue to offer high-quality carbon credits that reflect the true value of the projects we support.

• Does the ICVCM decision mean that renewables projects in general are a bad thing?

  Absolutely not. Renewables projects like wind energy and solar are one of the most important tools we have to reduce emissions. This decision relates to the provision of finance to renewable energy projects through carbon credits issued to existing carbon crediting methodologies.
  
  Effectively, the decision means that on the basis of the existing carbon credit methodologies for renewables, carbon finance isn’t the best vehicle for producing impact, because in lots of cases the projects would go ahead anyway.
  
  Because the carbon credit finance is often not essential to the project going ahead, these projects may lack ‘financial additionality’ – missing out on one of the important quality factors for carbon credits. What the ICVCM has said is that the carbon credit methodologies themselves don’t have enough robust additionality checks baked in, so the current methodologies will need to be improved before they can receive the “CCP-Approved” quality label.

• Does the ICVCM decision mean that all renewables credits are junk?

  It’s reductive and incorrect to say this means all of these kinds of credits are ‘junk’ or ‘worthless’, but it is true that there is a real additionality challenge for credits from renewables projects which means that buyers of those kinds of credits might not be meaningfully contributing to the project taking place.
  
  There can be lots of reasons why renewables projects might go ahead anyway on the basis that they receive incentives from other places – grants, investments, local regulations and so on. It’s also important to note that the issue raised by the ICVCM is not that the projects aren’t achieving what they say they are – it’s that it’s hard to prove based off the credit-issuing methodologies that the cash from the sale of carbon credits is making a meaningful difference to the financial viability of these projects. So when buying a renewable energy carbon credit, it’s harder to argue (based on the methodology alone) that the buyer has made a meaningful contribution to the renewable project taking place – because it’s hard to prove that it wouldn’t have happened without them.
  
  In some ways, this decision is a necessary and positive consequence of the success of renewables in recent years – carbon credits for renewables 15 years ago were more additional than they are today, because there was less investment, less regulation and most economies globally were heavily fossil-fuel dominated. But as green investment has grown and capacity has skyrocketed, it’s become ever easier, cheaper, and more heavily-incentivised to install renewables – leaving less need for carbon credit financing to get these projects built, and making carbon credit financing for renewables less additional.

• Can I still buy renewables credits from Ecologi in general?

  At this point, we aren’t totally banning the sale of renewables credits on our platform. We believe that despite the financial additionality challenges to renewables projects under the current methodologies, there are some circumstances and locations where voluntary carbon finance can be meaningfully applied to renewables projects. However, we are removing the ability to self-serve this particular type of credits, so that our team can walk through the benefits, limitations and trade-offs being made when customers want to support renewable energy projects. So you can still talk to us if you have a particular need to support renewable energy projects and our team will be happy to discuss.