Title: VCMI carbon credit claims ‘cannot be used for offsetting'

Language: English

Type: Website

Nature: Website

Published: June 30, 2023


Region: Global

Country: Global / Non-Specific

Topic: Emission Reduction Program

Keywords: Emission Reduction Program **

Document Link(s):


Document Summary:

A ‘carbon credit’ represents a tonne of carbon that has been avoided or removed through a project. These have often been used by corporates to offset instead of reduce their emissions, as ‘carbon offsets’, often to make a claim such as being ‘carbon neutral’.


Document Details:

Carbon credits cannot be used for offsetting emissions instead of reducing emissions within corporate value chains, or for making ‘carbon neutral’ claims, under the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)’s Claims Code.

Instead, companies can use carbon credits to go “above and beyond” the decarbonisation of activities in their own value chain to “further contribute” to cutting emissions, said Ana Carolina Szklo, technical director at VCMI.


Updated: January 11, 2024