Introducing Pre-rating Scorecard: Assess unrated carbon projects with confidence

How does a cookstove project’s baseline thermal efficiency impact carbon accounting risk?

To what extent does pyrolysis temperature affect a biochar project’s permanence?

What does harvesting and logging activity mean for the additionality of a reforestation project?

In other words, what’s really driving a project’s BeZero Carbon Rating?

You can find the answers in our public ratings methodologies, but we appreciate that these documents are, by necessity, lengthy. The market needs rapid and reliable ways to assess unrated projects from the bottom up; accordingly, our customers have asked for more interactive ways of engaging with our ratings frameworks.

BeZero’s in-house carbon ratings analysts, data scientists, and product engineers rose to the challenge, and we are now delighted to announce Pre-rating Scorecards on our platform.

What is a Pre-rating Scorecard?

BeZero’s Pre-rating Scorecard is a dynamic, data-driven tool that helps our customers explore how fundamental project parameters may influence carbon risks and, by extension, how those risks might impact potential rating outcomes. The Scorecard can be used at any stage of a project’s lifecycle, from early-stage to post-issuance.

Designed to be completed in as little as 20 minutes, depending on user familiarity with the project, the scorecard prompts users with sector-specific questions about the project’s technical and operational parameters defined by BeZero’s experts. As responses are entered, the tool calculates indicators for key project risk factors – additionality, carbon accounting, and permanence – as well as a score ranging from ‘aaa’ to ‘d’, representing the highest and lowest potential for climate impact, respectively.

These indicative scores help users quickly gauge an unrated project’s prospect of delivering on its carbon objectives, with a defined confidence level based on the inputs provided. And because the tool is dynamic, users can see the immediate impact of project design changes on their scores by changing inputs on the fly.

How can a pre-rating score help you?

Whether you are building or financing yet-to-be-rated carbon projects, or buying or retiring unrated credits, the Pre-rating Scorecard offers immediate, practical value:

• Project developers can quickly gauge their projects’ potential for high climate impact, optimise project design and operation, and build a confident case for a full rating assessment.

• Investors can de-risk their investments by screening and prioritising unrated projects with the highest pre-rating scores, focusing time and capital where they matter the most.

• Advisors can accelerate project shortlisting and due diligence and boost customer confidence through data-driven recommendations.

• Corporate buyers can mitigate reputational risk by investing in credits with a potentially high climate impact for more credible climate claims.

BeZero has rated over 600 projects (pre- and post-issuance) and remains committed to continually increasing our ratings coverage across sectors and markets. 

In the meantime, users across the carbon value chain can use Pre-rating Scorecards to screen thousands of yet-to-be-rated projects with precision. While indicative only, scores can also be used to get internal stakeholder buy-in for a more in-depth assessment in the form of an independent BeZero rating.

Why it’s unique: reliable, responsive, rapid

The Pre-rating Scorecard is the market’s only self-service risk assessment that fully follows sector-specific ratings methodologies. It’s a powerful tool for project design and due diligence, distinguished by four key features:

1. Project-level

   Pre-rating scores are powered by the same project-level risk parameters defined by BeZero’s in-house science team as those in our public methodologies. This means our customers can reliably interpret the results, knowing that the same scientific fundamentals behind BeZero’s ratings also underpin the scores.

2. Interactive

   Scorecards put BeZero’s transparent frameworks into our customers’ hands, enabling them to engage with key risk drivers in real time. By shedding light on how project design choices could impact different risk factors, users can stress-test project resilience and perform scenario analysis on the fly. Pulling these project ‘levers’ gives users a clear sense of what might ultimately turn the dial in a full rating assessment.

3. Actionable

   Pre-rating Scorecards provide discrete point estimates with defined confidence levels, offering practical considerations of how a project’s carbon credits might rate. This is more useful than an estimated rating range, which is harder to interpret and harder to trust. 

4. Fast

   With each scorecard designed to be completed in as little as 20 minutes, depending on familiarity with the sector and the project’s fundamental data, users can rapidly screen and assess projects they’re interested in. The tool’s streamlined experience brings BeZero’s ratings methodologies to life in an accessible way, instantly delivering tangible results and actionable insight.

Real time in no time: dynamic sensitivity analysis

So, how does the Pre-rating Scorecard work?

Users complete a straightforward series of questions that capture essential project-level information, as defined by BeZero’s experts. If you are relatively new to project analysis or a particular sector, user guides are available to help you throughout the process. 

We recommend having the relevant project design document (PDD) or draft PDD on hand, though this is not essential. Monitoring data and information about baseline studies are especially useful.

Step 1: Choose your sub-sector.

Users start by accessing the ‘Pre-rating Scorecard’ section of BeZero’s platform.

Because each scorecard is sector-specific, customers choose from a dropdown menu of available sub-sectors, spanning both tech-based and nature-based solutions.

Step 2: Answer project questions.

Users then answer a series of project-specific questions relating to the three risk factors in BeZero’s ratings framework: additionality, carbon accounting, and permanence. 

Questions may be qualitative, such as: ‘In the project's jurisdiction, how do existing policies support biochar production?’ or quantitative, for example: ‘If biomass is used as a fuel for the project or baseline, what fraction of non-renewable biomass (fNRB) do you apply?’.

As answers are submitted, the tool dynamically generates carbon risk factor indicators ranging from ‘aaa’ to ‘d’, allowing users to immediately see the impact of fundamental project inputs on carbon risks.

Step 3: See the results.

Upon completion, the tool gives a customer’s chosen project a pre-rating score ranging from ‘aaa’ to ‘d’, as well as a defined confidence level based on the answers provided.

Users can also unpack the specific risk drivers behind the score, meaning they can quickly hone in on critical parameters influencing potential project quality. This approach offers customers unparalleled ‘glass box’ transparency.

Step 4 (optional): Iterate and refine!

If you are involved in project origination, design, and implementation, the ability to review your answers to better understand how each one impacts project risk is uniquely valuable.

Scorecards allow users to effectively conduct sensitivity and scenario analysis in virtual real time, refine project design accordingly, and ultimately build better projects. The tool also indicates how these bottom-up project parameters might affect a rating outcome.

BeZero’s Product team will continually build new features, including the ability to pre-populate scorecards with project fundamentals for even faster self-assessments. Our in-house analysts are also available to help users submit project inputs.

Safeguarding independence: scores, not signals

While a pre-rating score aligns with the risk drivers outlined in our ratings methodologies, it is not a substitute for a full rating,* nor should it be interpreted or communicated in that way.

A formal BeZero Carbon Rating follows a significantly deeper, independent assessment by our ratings scientists and policy analysts. Compared to a pre-rating score, ratings are supported and contextualised by a greater range of data sources, proprietary models, and geospatial tools. Furthermore, ratings are subject to peer review and must be unanimously agreed upon by BeZero’s Ratings Committee.

However, scores and ratings are complementary. A pre-rating score can be a useful metric to aid early-stage project development and pre- and post-issuance due diligence. Scorecards offer an accessible way for project developers, investors, advisors, and buyers to engage with specific drivers of carbon risk early, ahead of a potential rating assessment.

Pre-rating scores are neither a prerequisite for a full rating nor do they influence rating outcomes. Rigorous firewalls are in place to ensure that BeZero’s Commercial and Product teams cannot share customers’ Scorecard results with our Ratings team to avoid any risk of influencing analyst opinions ahead of a formal assessment, which would be a conflict of interest.

As a rules-based, self-serve tool informed purely by the fundamental parameters outlined in our public methodologies, the Pre-rating Scorecard is non-advisory and non-predictive; no analytical judgement is used to generate results. Learn more about BeZero’s seven pillars of independent ratings here.

Scores and ratings - distinct but complementary

Unrated, but not unknown

With BeZero’s independent ratings becoming a cornerstone of project due diligence, transacting unrated carbon credits with potentially unknown risks can be daunting. 

But thanks to Pre-rating Scorecards, nobody has to fly blind in the absence of a rating. This unique innovation transforms our detailed ratings frameworks into a simple tool, offering users a practical way to engage earlier and more effectively with carbon risks – all in real time.

For those on the supply side, a pre-rating score offers a transparent, indicative view of project-level risk, helping them identify, build, and operate more resilient projects. As a tangible, data-driven output, the score can accelerate internal decision making and reduce stakeholder doubt ahead of a full rating assessment.

For carbon credit buyers, scorecards offer a powerful way to speed up the screening and triaging of unrated projects with promising signs of climate impact. Indicative scores can reduce uncertainty for ratings requests, which, in turn, make offsetting claims more credible.

By enhancing transparency and accessibility, pre-rating scores pave the way for more confident, data-driven decisions that can help to mobilise critical capital for meaningful climate action.

Ready to assess unrated carbon projects with precision, speed and confidence? Get in touch at commercial@bezerocarbon.com to book a demo today.

You can also see the Pre-rating Scorecard in action in our webinar during which industry insiders discussed how they think about quality in early-stage carbon projects. Watch the replay and read our key takeaways.

*BeZero Scorecards provide an indicative score of a carbon project’s efficacy aligned to the BeZero Carbon ratings methodology (“Scorecard Results”). Scorecard Results are an automated assessment based on limited information provided by users, are made available for information purposes only, and are not a comprehensive BeZero Carbon Rating. Scorecard Results are not a statement of fact and should not be relied upon in isolation. Users should only use Scorecard Results for internal purposes and must not represent a Scorecard Result as a BeZero Carbon Rating. BeZero provides no guarantee whatsoever that any Scorecard Result would achieve any particular BeZero Carbon Rating.