The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has expanded its roster of scientifically robust carbon crediting rules, approving several key methodologies under its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) framework to bolster the credibility of voluntary carbon markets.
In its latest assessment round, the independent governance body endorsed new protocols covering reforestation, improved forest management and methane reduction in rice cultivation, signaling a shift toward quality and transparency in carbon accounting.
Among the methodologies receiving full CCP-Approved status is Isometric‘s Reforestation Protocol version 1.1, designed to quantify carbon removals from restoring previously forested lands.
The protocol has already drawn interest from more than 20 project developers, including re.green and Living Carbon, with projected issuance of millions of carbon credits annually by 2030.
Relevant: Puro.earth Gains CCP Eligibility Under ICVCM Review
In agriculture, ICVCM granted conditional approval to Gold Standard’s rice cultivation methane-avoidance methodology version 1.0.
To be eligible for CCP labels projects must use Option 3—Activity Penetration (project-specific) to demonstrate additionality and apply the updated rule for accounting for soil organic carbon loss risk under the methodology for methane emission reductions through adjusted water management in rice cultivation.
This marks the first rice-specific approach to meet the council’s high-integrity criteria, aiming to address methane emissions from flooded paddy fields—a source of about 7 % of global methane emissions.
Gold Standard expects to issue up to 3.2 million credits over the next five years—primarily from projects in India, with additional activities across Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal and Thailand—which may be eligible for CCP labeling if the required conditions are met.
ICVCM also extended conditional CCP approval to ACR’s Improved Forest Management (IFM) on Non-Federal U.S. Forestlands version 2.0, making an estimated 2.7 million credits eligible once conditions are met.
Version 2.1 was approved on the condition that projects reducing total wood product output by less than the 5% de minimis threshold apply an appropriate leakage deduction, aligning their treatment with projects above that threshold.
Version 2.0 was also approved, subject to additional safeguards. These include verification of a dynamic baseline assessment in accordance with the ACR Improved Forest Management tool developed alongside version 2.1 and/or the generation of removal credits using Equation 30 of the methodology.
These decisions reflect the ICVCM’s ongoing effort to ensure that credits carry demonstrable environmental value, with rigorous governance, transparency and scientific underpinning.
As demand grows for high-integrity credits linked to climate-aligned action, the latest approvals may help attract buyers seeking verifiable impact.
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