The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVM) is an independent governance body established to set and enforce a global threshold standard for high-integrity carbon credits traded on the voluntary carbon market (VCM). It was launched in 2021 as the successor to the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM), which had been convened by Mark Carney, then UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.
The Council's flagship output is the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), published in March 2023, accompanied by an Assessment Framework and Assessment Procedure. The CCPs establish ten criteria covering three pillars:
- Governance — effective governance, tracking, transparency, and robust independent third-party validation and verification.
- Emissions impact — additionality, permanence, robust quantification of emission reductions and removals, and no double counting.
- Sustainable development — contribution to net-zero transition and alignment with sustainable development safeguards.
Carbon-crediting programs (such as Verra, Gold Standard, ACR, Climate Action Reserve, and ART) and individual credit categories within those programs can apply to be assessed against the CCPs. If approved, credits may carry a CCP label, signalling to buyers that they meet the Council's integrity threshold. The first CCP-eligible program decisions were announced in 2024, and the first category-level approvals (for certain methodologies, including some ozone-depleting substances and landfill gas projects) followed later that year.
The ICVCM works in parallel with the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), which addresses the demand side — how companies can credibly use and make claims about carbon credits — while ICVCM focuses on the supply side, i.e., the quality of the credits themselves.
The Council is governed by a Board of directors with regional balance and is advised by an Expert Panel and a Distinguished Advisory Group. Its work responds to sustained criticism of the VCM, including investigations in 2023 alleging that many rainforest-protection (REDD+) credits did not represent real emissions reductions.
Example
In March 2023, the ICVCM published its Core Carbon Principles, establishing a threshold standard against which carbon-crediting programs such as Verra and Gold Standard could seek a CCP label for their credits.
Frequently asked questions
The ICVCM sets supply-side integrity standards for carbon credits themselves through the Core Carbon Principles, while the VCMI sets demand-side standards for how companies may credibly claim the use of credits.
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