Market-Based Climate Solutions

VERIFICATION STANDARDS


Carbon Market Exchange Ltd.(CMX) provides a proprietary internal audit, a secondary audit by a third-party project developer, and a tertiary audit by a third-party project validator to ensure climate mitigation efforts are achieved.   CMX's offsetting projects bring additional social, environmental, or economic benefits relevant to sustainable development. Such offsets can be originated from various types of projects, including, forestry, wind energy, methane capture, and other emissions-reducing or avoidance projects. 

To ensure environmental integrity, the Company's offsetting projects will meet the standards of, and be listed on internationally recognized registries such as: 

American Carbon Registry (ACR)
Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART)
China Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Voluntary Emission Reduction Program § Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
Climate Action Reserve (CAR)
Global Carbon Council (GCC)
The Gold Standard (GS)
Cercarbono
Verified Carbona Standard (VCS)

CMX's offset project underwriting and certification standards include: 

  • Additionality - a requirement that the greenhouse gas reduction or removal used as an offset be ‘additional’ to business-as-usual activity. Offsets must represent a permanent reduction of emissions that cannot be reversed. Similarly, an activity that generates offsets should not result in unintended increases in emissions elsewhere. 

  • Nationally Determined Contributions ("NDC") - NDCs are at the heart of the Paris Agreement aimed to achieve long-term goals to reduce GHG emissions. Each country prepares, communicates, and maintains a GHG emission budget with mitigation methods. The goal is for the country to reduce overall emissions and "contribute" to UN objective of reducing planetary emissions. Before countries can sell carbon offsets in the international market, the NDCs must be met. CARBON works with governments to meet NDC requirements. In some cases, the Company offset projects reserve offsets to be used to meet NDCs. 

  • Baseline Study - to quantify the greenhouse gas reduction benefits from an offsetting project, a baseline study must determine what would happen if the project had not been implemented. 

  • Verification and validation - emissions reductions need to be quantified using accurate measurements, valid protocols, and be independently audited. 

  • Double Counting - CMX’s programs have procedures in place to track verified Carbon units and to avoid that an emissions reduction is counted more than once towards attaining climate change mitigation. 

  • Risk Mitigation - the Company has safeguards in place to address environmental and social risks.By following the above standards, CMX ensures market integrity and that the offsets created can be transferred to international buyers at a premium price.