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Image of a road infrastructure. SDG 9&11 deep dive

How VCM projects can support sustainable industrialisation

  • Cara Howse
    Product Ops Manager
  • Torrey Sanseverino
    Senior Research Manager, Beyond Carbon
  • Beyond Carbon
Global progress towards SDG 9 ‘Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure’ and SDG 11 ‘Sustainable Cities’ is not on track for meeting their 2030 targets. A huge gap in finance exists, particularly in developing countries, making investment in sustainable infrastructure critical1. The VCM could help channel finance into SDGs 9 & 11, but these goals are not commonly claimed in the VCM. This may be due to a lack of appropriate indicators for measuring impacts, particularly for SDG 11, where less than 10% of indicators are scalable to the project level, compared to just under 50% for SDG 9. Our price analysis shows that credits associated with SDGs 9 & 11 do not command a price premium over credits associated with other SDGs. This report is the seventh in a series that investigates how applicable these SDGs are to the VCM.

  • SDGs 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) & 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), in relation to the other SDGs, are not commonly claimed in the voluntary carbon market (VCM). Overall less than a fifth of credits with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) claims have claimed SDG 9 &/or 11, making them the 11th and 13th most commonly claimed SDGs. 

  • Despite their low popularity, projects in the VCM can still make strong contributions towards these SDGs.

  • SDG 9 indicators are more appropriate at project level scale in the VCM than SDG 11 indicators. Approximately 40% of SDG 9 and 7% of SDG 11 indicators are scalable to project level.

  • However, there are no observed price premiums for credits claiming SDGs 9 &/or 11 compared to credits with other SDG claims.

Contents

  • SDGs 9 & 11 VCM market trends

  • SDG 9 & 11 claims tend not to influence carbon credit price

  • Challenges in measuring SDGs 9 & 11 in the VCM

  • Conclusion

  • Appendix

  • References

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