Back to insights
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
  • Natural Capital
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

Discover more

Access this in full, and many more insights from BeZero’s team of carbon scientists, as well as project information and headline ratings, for free.

New? Register here.
Register
Already have an account?
Log in