Quality Ratings
The carbon market has an ever growing number of project mechanisms, standards and certificates that are used to generate credible emission reduction credits. However, in order for the market to grow to the size that is necessary for it to play a significant part in the attempt to stop climate change, there is a great need for a universal yardstick that can be used to compare all carbon credits.
The Carbon Rating Agency (CRA) has created a new rating service that defines the “quality” of any carbon credit by analyzing the essential ingredients of a high quality credit:
Real - Measurable - Additional - Permanent - Leakage proof - Verified - Unique/Traceable – Transparency - Clear ownership rights - Positive sustainable aspects
The aim of creating this Quality Rating service is to provide an independent and credible assessment and opinion of the quality of the credits developed under all of the offsetting systems in the global market.
Approach
The evaluation will be based on the CRA’s methodology of assessing offset quality which follows clear and broadly accepted criteria for “quality credits”, as listed above. There are a considerable number and variety of “voluntary” systems in use, with widely varying levels of recognition and acceptance. The CRA approach for assessing the quality of emission reductions recognizes the individual quality drivers across all the systems.
CRA will assess a carbon credit against the above set of criteria, taking into account the available information underlying the approaches and also the discussions and debates that have taken place on the development of the relevant standard, mechanism or certificate.
The result will be a graded opinion from a 5-point scale that defines the quality of the carbon credit. This global and truly comprehensive approach will allow any two carbon credits to be compared and will provide carbon market participants with an essential guide on how to price carbon.
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