Standards & certifications

MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, Verification) is the technical foundation of any certification standard. For soil carbon, MRV typically combines satellite measurements (dMRV), field sampling, and independent verification. The quality of MRV is what distinguishes a robust credit from a fragile one.

The Gold Standard certification process follows five structured, public steps. Step 1: project design and drafting of a PDD (Project Design Document) describing the methodology, scope, baseline scenario, implemented practices and MRV system. Step 2: validation by an accredited third-party auditor verifying PDD consistency with the Gold Standard methodology and compliance with Safeguarding Principles (human rights, biodiversity, local communities). Step 3: field monitoring throughout the project (typically 5 renewable years), with continuous data collection. Step 4: periodic verification (often annual or biannual) by an independent auditor checking monitoring data and estimating the volume of tCO₂e actually sequestered. Step 5: issuance, the emission of credits on the Gold Standard Registry with a unique identifier per credit and transparent publication. This 5-step structure, inherited from the UN's CDM and refined by Gold Standard, is today considered the reference on the voluntary market.

The ICVCM's Core Carbon Principles (CCP), published in 2023 and enriched since, form the integrity meta-framework of the voluntary market. They revolve around five technical requirements. Additionality: the project would not have happened without carbon finance, excluding projects that are already profitable or regulatory. Permanence: sequestered carbon must remain locked over a long horizon (often 100 years for elite standards), with reversibility management (buffer pool, insurance). No double counting: each tonne can only be counted once, which implies public registries and corresponding adjustments between countries. Co-benefits: the project must document its positive impacts beyond carbon (biodiversity, water, employment, human rights). No leakage: the project must not shift emissions elsewhere. A standard is judged 'CCP-aligned' if its methodologies pass these five filters.

Label Bas-Carbone is the French framework created in 2018 by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and operationally managed by the DGEC. It aims to give a national framework to domestic carbon finance and to favour projects on French territory. Several methods have been approved by ministerial decree: for agriculture, the main ones are CarbonAgri (cattle farming), Grandes Cultures (cereal and oilseed crops), Hedges, and Forest Plantations. Each method defines its baseline scenario, its MRV protocol, its commitment durations (typically 5 years for agriculture, 30 for forestry) and its verification requirements. The Label guarantees traceability (projects published on the official site) but remains more flexible than Gold Standard on MRV (less frequent sampling, more generic models) and on buffer pool design. It is mainly suited to French buyers and local authorities looking to value a local impact chain, but remains less recognised for international BVCM reporting.

ISO 14064-2, published by the International Organization for Standardization, is a cross-cutting standard that defines requirements for quantifying, monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas reductions or removals at the project level. Unlike Gold Standard or Verra which are full programmes (methodologies, registry, governance), ISO 14064-2 is a generic methodological framework that can be combined with other standards. Its strength lies in its geographic neutrality and international recognition by statutory auditors: a credit certified ISO 14064-2 by an accredited body (DNV, TÜV, Bureau Veritas) benefits from strong credibility for corporate reporting. Its limit is the absence of an integrated registry and a buffer-pool-style risk mutualisation mechanism, which requires a serious operator to manage traceability. In practice, ISO 14064-2 is often used for French agricultural projects that do not meet Gold Standard's strict time windows, combined with an independent third-party registry.