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First do no harm: safeguards in the VCM

First do no harm: safeguards in carbon projects

  • Torrey Sanseverino
    Beyond Carbon Manager
  • Dr Spencer Meyer
    Chief Ratings Officer
  • Julia Mackey
    Beyond Carbon Analyst
  • Natural Capital
  • Ratings

  • Safeguards are essential for creating high-integrity carbon projects, because they improve the likelihood of carbon outcomes, increase beyond-carbon benefits, and minimise the risk of negative impacts. 

  • While not all carbon standards require the use of safeguards, meta-standards like the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) provide some guidance. 

  • Identifying the safeguards that a carbon project has in place can be difficult because of inconsistencies in requirements and reporting.  

  • BeZero Carbon offers project-specific safeguard information for carbon projects on the Beyond Carbon dashboard. Platform users can see the safeguards evidenced in publicly available project documents for each rated project.

Contents

  • What are safeguards?

  • Safeguards ecosystem

  • BeZero classification of safeguard requirements

  • Conclusion

  • Appendix A. Safeguard definitions

  • Appendix B. Standards body safeguards requirements breakdown

  • Appendix C. Table 2 and 3 footnotes

  • Appendix D. Additional safeguards required by standards bodies 

  • References 

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