Carbon credits 101: what is the Gold Standard?

Gold Standard is one of the leading standards and registries in the voluntary carbon market. It develops requirements and methodologies to ensure that climate projects seeking to issue Gold Standard carbon credits, as well as other programs aiming at credible impact reporting, are achieving positive outcomes. The Gold Standard Foundation, which operates the standard, was founded in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs to increase the level of environmental integrity and measure the sustainable development outcomes of carbon credit projects.

The foundation runs the Gold Standard for the Global Goals (GS4GG), which is the standard that carbon credit projects are certified against. It enables carbon projects to quantify and certify their impacts against a high bar of environmental and social benefits. Projects can be issued Gold Standard carbon credits after robust assurance of emission reductions as well as contributing to at least two additional Sustainable Development Goals to ensure a positive impact. Furthermore, Gold Standard carbon credits require a gender and stakeholder-inclusive design and the implementation of different environmental and social safeguards.

Gold Standard keeps a public registry of the planned, issued, and retired Gold Standard carbon credits. As a funding mechanism for carbon projects, the Gold Standard for the Global Goals has created billions of dollars of shared value for climate and sustainability in the voluntary carbon market.

Gold Standard carbon credits can be issued under three different scopes: community services projects, renewable energy projects, and land use & forestry projects. All projects are subject to general requirements, complemented by specific requirements based on project type.

Community services projects

Community service projects improve access to services or resources at the household or community level. These can include:

• Renewable energy mini-grid or off-grid solutions, including multiple different renewable energy sources.
• End-use energy efficiency, for example, efficient cooking and heating.
• Waste management and handling, including activities that lead to energy or a usable product.
• Water, sanitation, and hygiene activities with a connection to climate benefits.

Renewable energy projects

These projects supply energy to a national or regional grid from renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydro or waste-to-energy. Additional requirements apply based on project type.

Land use & forestry projects

Land use & forestry projects cover a range of activities, such as afforestation/reforestation, change in agriculture practices, enrichment of soil organic carbon, and increasingly blue carbon.

Forestry projects increase tree coverage or restore previously forested landscapes. Activities can include:

• Planting trees
• Single species plantations
• Silvicultural systems, such as conservation forests or forests with selective harvesting/rotation forestry
• Agriculture (agroforestry) or pasture (silvopasture) activities

It’s good to note that actual tree planting on the ground is a key requirement and activities related to preventative deforestation are not allowed. These activities must take place in areas that have not been a forest for at least the past 10 years, and at least 10% of the total Project Area is a “Protected area,” which is set aside for protecting or enhancing biological diversity. Projects in areas with or near wetlands must ensure that no planting or any other intervention takes place in these zones.

Agricultural projects include introducing measures in agricultural practices that are not common practice yet for emissions reductions, while soil organic carbon projects cover a broad range of activities to achieve avoidance of emissions as well as sequestration of carbon in soil.

To issue Gold Standard carbon credits, projects must be certified to ensure that results are measured and verified, and lead to the climate and sustainable development impacts they aim to achieve. This ensures credible impact reporting and peace of mind for buyers in the voluntary carbon market.

It’s important to understand the differences between validation, verification, and certification. The validation and verification of Gold Standard projects are conducted by independent and accredited Validation and Verification Bodies (VVBs). They audit the projects seeking to be issued carbon credits to check that the projects, and the methodologies applied, are conducted with integrity and high quality.

Validation is the first part of the process, taking place before the project is implemented. During validation, a VVB checks whether the project plan meets Gold Standard rules and requirements, and approves the project description. Verification is conducted after the first project activities have taken place, and regularly as long as the project is active. During verification, VVBs make sure that the outcomes that were proposed in the initial project documentation have been achieved in the implementation of the project, leading to real emission reductions.

Finally, projects are certified by SustainCERT, the official certification body for the Gold Standard for the Global Goals. In that function, we ensure carbon projects achieve what they intended after project implementation. Certification with SustainCERT is powered by a digital platform that is designed to improve workflows and document management and improve the collaboration between project developers and the certification team. Once the project has been certified, it can be issued carbon credits to sell in the voluntary carbon market.

SustainCERT is the official certification body for Gold Standard for the Global Goals, meaning that all projects aiming to issue Gold Standard carbon credits must go through certification with SustainCERT. Learn more about the certification process or get in touch with our team.