The top carbon-credit rating agencies deliver grades that are inconsistent, often undervalue safeguards for local communities and sometimes ignore additional environmental benefits brought by the projects whose integrity they claim to be reviewing, according to Carbon Market Watch (CMW).
Worse, carbon credits "do not represent the genuine emissions reductions or removals that they claim," CMW said.
CMW, a nonprofit watchdog, evaluated four rating agencies — BeZero, Calyx, Renoster and Sylvera — in a report published earlier this month. The agencies are independent, third-party organizations that assess whether credits accurately represent the tonnes of carbon that companies claim are being removed from their business projects. The agencies sell their reports to prospective buyers in the voluntary market for carbon credit.
Here are the CMW’s five most important takeaways.
1. The ratings agencies aren’t consistent
The report showed the ratings for three projects across the agencies — an avoided deforestation project in the Amazon, a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia and a forest restoration program in Uruguay.
The noteworthy headline? The projects were not uniformly rated by each body. For example, the Amazon project received a high ranking from Sylvera, while Calyx and BeZero gave the project a low rating:
- Sylvera: Tier 1
- Calyx: D
- BeZero: C
2. No agency considers safeguards in its assessment
None of the four agencies incorporate safeguards that prevent negative impacts on local communities, Indigenous people or the environment into their ratings. Sylvera considers safeguards only as a part of its co-benefits score. CMW recommends agencies add safeguards as part of their credit quality score.
3. Everyone weights 'additionality' scores differently
All the agencies agree that the most important potential benefit of a carbon redu
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