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<p id="18ef" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">In the <a class="cq lu" href="https://medium.com/building-ecologi/putting-down-roots-grounding-our-climate-impact-in-scientific-knowledge-1e46fe766522" rel="noopener">last article</a>, we discussed how we use scientific knowledge to guide our impact decision-making, and also introduced the concept of the Ecologi Climate Committee.</p>
<p id="59ac" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Here at Ecologi, we try to be as transparent as possible, and you can find listings of all our impact purchases on <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dACvzjE5nBE1cKZBAhYzsUa7rIiLJqCWXVgY4bNS8_Q/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our Public Ledger</a>. To find these projects, we work closely with our Climate Committee to guide our impact strategy, and to ensure that all the money we receive via the Ecologi platform goes as far as it possibly can to have the greatest possible climate impact.</p>
<p id="367b" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">The Committee is made up of academics <span id="rmm">a</span>nd industry experts across many different sectors, and meets once per month for a formal discussion, chaired by myself. At our monthly Committee meetings and in between, the group discusses the latest developments in climate action, helps to answer challenging questions that arise from our work — or fed back by our community — and sets out the scope and direction of our climate impact.</p>
<p id="009a" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Let’s meet some of the team…</p>


<h2>Nicoletta Piccolrovazzi</h2>
<p><strong>Co-Founder &amp; Chairman — Applied Sustainability GmbH</strong></p>
<p id="6dd4" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Nicoletta draws on thirty-plus years’ experience leading diverse organisations and developing sustainability-driven business and collaboration programs with leading corporates and NGOs. Recently, she founded Applied Sustainability GmbH with the purpose of helping organisations “make sustainability real”.</p>
<h2>Miranda Gorman</h2>
<p><strong>Project Drawdown</strong></p>
<p id="771c" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Miranda Gorman, Ph.D. is an environmental engineer and Senior Research Fellow for Industry at Project Drawdown whose research focuses on the sustainability of material resources. She has published peer-reviewed research papers and presented at international conferences on the topics of material flow analysis, resource availability forecasting, the circular economy, and non-fuel mineral mining.</p>
<h2>David Markowitz</h2>
<p><strong>Ecologist and Sustainability Expert</strong></p>
<p id="0062" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">David has two degrees in biology and ecology with additional specialisms in forestry and carbon accounting. With experience from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and working with satellite imagery to analyse protected areas and wildfires, David provides support to the Ecologi team regarding new and existing forestry-related projects.</p>
<h2>Daniel Keir</h2>
<p><strong>CyStellar</strong></p>
<p id="82be" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Daniel is the Climate Change, Natural Perils and Sustainability Project Manager at CyStellar, a SpaceTech company using remote sensing data to deliver natural hazard and weather insights to various sectors. Day-to-day, he works with climate and weather data to aid companies monitoring natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and wildfires. He previously co-founded the sustainability consultancy, Ecofye.</p>


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<h2>James A. King</h2>
<p><strong>Research Associate, University of Sheffield</strong></p>
<p id="8ca0" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">James King, Ph.D. is a climate scientist and Research Associate at the University of Sheffield, whose work mainly focuses on climate models; investigating reasons why their performance varies in some parts of the world, developing ways to identify what makes a model more reliable, and using models to understand the ways that humans might be able to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Now, James’ research focuses on the broader impacts on the Earth system of nature-based carbon dioxide removal strategies.</p>
<h2>Amelia Crews</h2>
<p><strong>Climate Advocate &amp; Energy Innovation Co-ordinator</strong></p>
<p id="f207" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Amelia is Energy Innovation Co-ordinator at Your Co-op Energy, working on many projects focused on community development utilising renewables. She actively engages the voice of youth in pivotal conversations around climate change: in 2021, she was an ambassador for the G7 Youth Summit (‘Y7’) in Cornwall.</p>
<h2>Andrew Ritchie</h2>
<p><strong>Director, ALR Business Solutions Ltd</strong></p>
<p id="a145" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Within previous roles, Andy managed validation and verification activities relating to EU ETS and the UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism, plus a number of other schemes. More recently, he works in assessing forestry management against certification standards and is working with large organisations developing sustainability frameworks to help effectively manage their environmental and social challenges.</p>


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<h2>Melissa Hobson</h2>
<p><strong>Sustainability communications consultant</strong></p>
<p id="7f48" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Melissa Hobson is a consultant working in the sustainability and for-purpose sector. In communications, Melissa has worked with companies and charities big and small (both in-house and agency side) for over 11 years. She is passionate about marine conservation and has been a certified SCUBA diver for 13 years.</p>
<h2>David Dennison</h2>
<p><strong>Climate &amp; Energy Advisor</strong></p>
<p id="03cd" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">David is an experienced climate change advisor with a strong technical background and deep knowledge of the energy sector, including renewables. He is particularly passionate about climate trends and impact on the environment. His goal is to help business, government and the community navigate a successful transition to net zero.</p>
<h2>Rebecca Dobbin</h2>
<p><strong>Ecologist &amp; Environmental Scientist at Victoria University of Wellington</strong></p>
<p id="5021" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Rebecca has a BSc in Ecology and Biodiversity, and a Master’s degree in Climate Change Science and Climate Policy. Her research is focused on climate science and modelling, mitigation, adaptation, conservation biology and carbon markets. She write reports on opportunities for mitigation and adaptation in New Zealand, and assists Ecologi with climate research.</p>
<h2>Nicolien Van Zwieten</h2>
<p><strong>Geoscientist</strong></p>
<p id="b619" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Nicolien works as a geologist specialising in ground hazards, having completed degrees in BSc Physical Earth Science, and MSc Structural Geology and Geophysics. Her experience also includes GIS work addressing biodiversity loss and the climate crisis, and researching carbon capture and storage initiatives.</p>
<h2>Stefanie Kaiser</h2>
<p><strong>Communications, forestry and sustainability expert</strong></p>
<p id="35c2" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Stefanie works at the intersection of communication and sustainability. She specialises in sustainable land use and forestry, but spends most of her days thinking about the wider implications of sustainability solutions. In previous work, Stefanie worked in impact investing, and she also previously trained as a biologist.</p>
<h2>Chris Webb</h2>
<p><strong>CEO, GreenGrowth</strong></p>
<p id="d761" class="ie if ha az b ig sd hd ih ii se hg ij ik sf il im in sg io ip iq sh ir is it gu db" data-selectable-paragraph="">Chris is an environment and sustainability expert and currently CEO of GreenGrowth investments, helping people have a positive environmental impact with their money. He is well experienced in evaluating and improving business’ sustainability profiles both in the UK and abroad. His work in carbon reduction, circular economy and resource efficiency has received national and international sustainability awards.</p>
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UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

<p>The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.</p>
<p>To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.</p>


<h2><strong>Table of contents</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>


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<h2><b>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:</span></p>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Measure your emissions first </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">– to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from.<br />
</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Set science-based targets and work towards them</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM)</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Buy high-quality carbon credits</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Disclose and report transparently</b> – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>


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<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
<p>In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.</p>


<h2><b>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>ICROA-endorsed standards</b> <b>only</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Responsive to ICVCM decisions </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">– we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Locally-appropriate projects only</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Deep project-level scrutiny</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Methodological consensus</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</span></li>
</ul>


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<h2><b>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.</span></p>


<h3><strong>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Examples: </strong><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gold Standard, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Verra, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Puro Earth, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Isometric, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plan Vivo.</span></i></p>


<h3><strong>Assessment level: </strong><b>Methodology </b><b>(or ‘Protocol’)</b></h3>
<p><strong>Examples: </strong><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">GS TPDDTEC, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">VM0048, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">ACM0002.</span></i></p>


<h3><strong>Assessment level: Project</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Examples: </strong><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">GS 10790, </span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">VCS 1571.</span></i></p>


<p>Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.</p>
<p>Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.</p>


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<h2><b>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:</span></p>
<h3><b>Project quality </b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Due diligence</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What makes your projects additional?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Positioning</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.</span></p>


<h2><b>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.</span></p>


<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
<p>Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.</p>


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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s not all bad. While there’s a lot of negative news about the climate, let’s not forget the good stuff. Find climate wins, reasons to be hopeful and plenty of positivity in our good news timeline.</span></p>


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