When RMI surveyed carbon market participants over the past couple of years, the non-profit heard tales that will be familiar to anyone who has navigated the ecosystem’s confusing array of document and data types. Project developers reported spending up to 60 percent of their time dealing with requests for data. Buyers said due diligence could take as long as 18 months.

In July, the organization unveiled its solution: an open-source framework designed to “bring structure to the vast universe of carbon credit data.”

The potential benefits of RMI’s Carbon Crediting Data Framework (CCDF) are already evident in a pilot catalogue of carbon credits developed by Centigrade, a startup partnering with the non-profit. On display are climate projects ranging from fuel-efficient cookstoves in Guatemala to forest conservation in Mississippi. Potential buyers and other users can click through to a wealth of information, presented in standardized form for each project. Data points include number of available credits, estimated price and ratings from third-party agencies.

Hundreds of data fields

Underneath the hood of Centigrade’s system is a framework based on at least 570 fields, grouped into categories and sub-categories. The fields were chosen by RMI’s Carbon Markets Initiative team and integrate methodologies from major registries, including Verra and Puro.earth; quality criteria from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market; and templates for suppliers, such as those developed by Frontier, a coalition of carbon removal buyers.

Widespread adoption of the framework would bring multiple benefits, said Bonnie Lei, an RMI principal. Project developers could make a single set of data available for potential buyers, eliminating the duplicative effort of replying to several sets of questions. And buyers could assemble candidate projects in a data room for easy comparison. 

Making it easier for buyers to assess credit quality is a focus of the project, added Lei. Free-to-access databases of credits already exist, including one developed by the Climate Action Data Trust, a stakeholder initiative founded by the World Bank and others. But the CCDF is designed to extend these projects by providing additional data. 

“You really need to be able to go into these sets of fields that get into understanding the emissions components of the credit,” said Lei. “As well as the social, environmental dimensions, which we believe are really important and distinguis