Act Beyond Value Chain

The purchase of voluntary carbon credits offers the most scalable way to finance beyond-value-chain actions. Other forms of support, such as direct finance or in-kind support, are less resource efficient, and therefore less scalable, and don’t have a common measurement framework compared to high-integrity carbon credits available on the voluntary carbon market. An important exception is for investment into nascent technology-based removals, such as Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS). Direct finance is particularly important at this stage of market development, as it helps overcome early project financing barriers to scale the developing technology.

The voluntary carbon market enables private investors, governments, non-governmental organizations, and businesses to voluntarily purchase carbon credits. The current supply of voluntary carbon credits comes mostly from private entities that develop carbon projects, or governments that develop programs certified by carbon standards that generate emission reductions and/or removals.

While your first priority should be reducing in-value chain emissions as much as possible, as a second priority, and in concert with robust, transparent and science-aligned net-zero emissions targets and strategies, you should reduce emissions outside of your value chain to counterbalance at least part of what you cannot abate.