Corporations across the globe are elevating the importance of reducing their organization’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, minimizing an organization’s carbon footprint can be challenging, so companies are turning to carbon markets.
Organizations offset their carbon footprint by using the carbon markets by purchasing carbon credits generated by GHG reduction projects. However, it’s vital to ensure these carbon credits reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s where Verra comes in.
Verra is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges by developing and managing standards that help the private sector, countries, and civil society achieve ambitious sustainable development and climate action goals.
Verra’s global standards and frameworks serve as linchpins for channeling finance towards high-impact activities that tackle some of the most pressing environmental issues of our day.
Verra Verified Carbon Units
The Verra Registry was launched in April 2020 and is the cornerstone for the implementation of Verra’s standards and programs. It facilitates the transparent listing of information on certified projects, issued and retired units, and enables the trading of units. It is the central repository for all information and documentation relating to Verra projects and credits. The Verra Registry also ensures the uniqueness of projects and credits in the system.
Once projects have been certified against the VCS Program’s rigorous set of rules and requirements, project developers can be issued tradable GHG credits that they call Verified Carbon Units (VCUs). Those VCUs can then be sold on the open market and retired by individuals and companies as a means to offset their own emissions. Over time, this flexibility channels financing to clean, innovative businesses and technologies.
Verra’s role is to develop and administer the program. They provide oversight to all operational components of the VCS Program and are responsible for updating the VCS rules to ensure the quality of VCUs. The VCS Program Advisory Group supports the development of the VCS Program. This multi-stakeholder body helps ensure that the VCS Program continues to serve its users effectively and efficiently and drives practical and robust solutions to mitigate climate change.
CIBO’s Verra Project
CIBO was the first U.S.-based agricultural carbon project on Verra. CIBO’s program has been registered by Verra under the title “The CIBO Initiative for Scaling Regenerative Agriculture.” For the first time, a company looking to bring a registered carbon program to their growers or stakeholder groups in the U.S. now has a project infrastructure that they can leverage through Verra carbon registry or as a reference design for their own project.
CIBO’s Verra project was designed from the ground up to support enterprises throughout the food and agriculture value chain, including: CPGs, input companies, grain and commodities companies, ethanol producers, and others with agricultural commodities in their customer base or supply chain.
The project helps provide financial and technical support to U.S. commodity crop growers resulting in GHG reductions, GHG removals, and improved land resiliency for regenerative agriculture practices, including cover crop adoption, reduced tillage and reduced nitrogen.
Interested in learning more about CIBO’s Verra Project? Request a demo and meet with our team.
