By
Director of Climate Science & Impact
Edited: 10 Jul 2025
15 min read
If your business is serious about climate action, you’re likely exploring how to fund high-integrity carbon credits alongside your emissions reduction efforts. But the voluntary carbon market (VCM) is in flux - trust has been shaken, scrutiny has intensified, and standards are shifting fast. The good news is that tools for assessing carbon credit integrity are improving, and credible climate contributions are more achievable than ever.
At Ecologi, we've built a science-led, data-backed framework to ensure that every project in our portfolio meets the highest standards of integrity. Here’s what to look for in a high-quality carbon credit, and how our Carbon Project Assessment Framework (CPAF) helps us to select those projects.
What is a carbon credit?
Carbon credits represent the avoidance or removal of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) from the atmosphere. That could mean supporting a clean cookstove project that avoids emissions, or a biochar facility that locks carbon away for centuries.
These credits provide essential funding - known as carbon finance - to projects that wouldn’t be viable without it. Some credits avoid future emissions, others remove existing ones (learn more about that here). Both have a role to play, but not all credits deliver equally. As scrutiny grows, buyers must assess not just what a credit claims to do, but how well it delivers in practice.
Are carbon credits worthless?
Not at all - but quality matters more than ever.
The voluntary carbon market has come under fire for high-profile failures, with media investigations spotlighting projects that failed to deliver on their climate promises. But these failures are the exception, not the rule.
While some credits are low quality, many others deliver verified, measurable, and science-aligned climate benefits. The challenge is telling them apart, and that’s where improved carbon credit due diligence and clearer carbon credit quality criteria come in.
Which carbon standards matter today?
Carbon credits are issued through independent standards, like Gold Standard, Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), and Puro.earth, each with its own requirements for how projects must be developed, measured, and verified.
At Ecologi, we only support projects certified by standards endorsed by the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA), meaning they meet rigorous criteria for environmental integrity and transparency. Gold Standard, VCS and Puro.earth are ICROA-endorsed. But standards are just the first step. We go deeper, assessing the specific methodology and the individual project’s real-world delivery.
How is carbon credit quality assessed?
In 2025, the basics haven’t changed. A good carbon credit still needs:
A credible baseline: How the project was assessed for a background level of emissions, against which avoidance or removal can be measured.
Strong additionality: The project activity is “additional,” meaning that the emissions avoidance or removal would not have happened otherwise.
Minimal leakage: The project does not cause excess emissions elsewhere. This means that the project does not lead to an increase in emissions in another part of the world.
Long-term permanence: The emissions avoidance or removal is permanent. This means that the emissions prevention or removal should be sustained over time.
Other co-benefits: The project contributes other co-benefits, such as contributing toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This means that the project should have positive impacts on other areas, such as social or environmental factors.
But today, those criteria are just the starting point. Carbon credit verification standards are becoming far more sophisticated. In particular, new guidance from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) sets out ten Core Carbon Principles that are quickly becoming the new quality benchmark for carbon credits.
Core Carbon Principle | Description |
|---|---|
| Program governance must be transparent, accountable, and effective. |
| Credits must be uniquely identified and tracked to prevent double-counting. |
| Clear and comprehensive project data must be publicly accessible. |
| Independent third parties must validate and verify project outcomes. |
| Emissions benefits must be long-lasting, with plans to manage reversal risks. |
| Projects must generate benefits that wouldn’t occur without carbon finance. |
| Emissions reductions or removals must not be counted more than once. |
| Reductions/removals must be accurately and conservatively measured. |
| Projects must deliver co-benefits and avoid harm, supporting the SDGs. |
| Projects must align with and support the global net-zero transition. |
Going beyond the standards
Ecologi’s in-house due diligence framework goes beyond standards and registry requirements to ask deeper questions about credit quality and project performance.
Is the credit coming directly from the project developer? Is the vintage recent? Does the project align with local context and needs? Are independent rating agencies like Sylvera or BeZero giving it top marks? And does the project deliver benefits across climate, nature, and people, not just tonnes on paper?
These are the kinds of checks buyers should demand - and the ones we apply to every project we support.
How Ecologi assesses carbon credit quality
Our due diligence process now follows a structured scoring approach called the Carbon Projects Assessment Framework (CPAF).
This framework applies a three-tier assessment across:
Carbon standard (e.g. Gold Standard, VCS, Puro)
Methodology (the ruleset used for measuring carbon)
Project (the specific implementation and real-world outcomes)
Each level is evaluated using independent third-party data, on-the-ground evidence, and our own internal analysis.
Introducing our Carbon Project Assessment Framework
Our CPAF considers a wide range of quality and risk factors, grouped into three pillars of impact:
Climate – Does the project deliver measurable carbon reductions or removals?
Nature – Does it support biodiversity, ecosystems or land restoration?
People – Does it respect communities and human rights?
For each pillar, projects gain points for quality and lose points for risk. These are combined into a risk-adjusted score out of 100.
To qualify for inclusion in an Ecologi portfolio, projects must:
Achieve a minimum overall score of 80, and
Score at least 65 in each of the three impact pillars
This ensures every project we support delivers not just on carbon, but on broader environmental and social outcomes.
What goes into the score?
We draw on data from independent ratings agencies like Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global, and Renoster. We also analyse:
The credit’s life cycle and market traceability
The project developer’s track record
Localised risk data (e.g. INFORM Index)
Long-term monitoring tools like GIS and satellite verification
This allows us to go beyond claims on a registry and evaluate real performance on the ground.
We also prioritise credits that:
Come directly from the developers
Have newer vintages (typically under five years old)
Align with the Oxford Principles and the latest ICVCM guidance
It’s a rigorous process, and that’s exactly what high-integrity climate action demands.
Why high-quality carbon credit portfolios are a smart business decision
The quality of the carbon credits you buy affects your company’s climate impact, but it also affects your reputation, your credibility, and your long-term strategy.
Choosing low-quality credits may seem cheaper upfront, but it comes with serious risks (that can end up costing you): greenwashing accusations, failed audits, loss of stakeholder trust, or funding projects that actively harm local communities. In contrast, following best practice and investing in high-integrity credits:
Protects your brand from reputational damage
Supports real climate progress, in line with Oxford Principles and Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) guidance
Builds confidence with regulators, customers, investors and employees
Positions your business as a climate leader
Your climate strategy doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does need to be transparent, and it probably should evolve over time.
Build your climate strategy with confidence. Work with Ecologi.
Carbon credits can be a valuable part of your net-zero journey, but only when used well. That means reducing what you can, restoring what you can’t, and reporting on your actions with clarity and transparency.
At Ecologi, we help businesses do exactly that. From designing Oxford-aligned carbon credit portfolios to vetting each project through our rigorous CPAF process, we make sure your funding flows to solutions that make a real and lasting climate impact.