Many companies bought their first carbon credits between 2019 and 2024. They chose a project, paid an invoice, received a certificate and moved on. Since then the ground rules have changed. EU rules ban “carbon neutral” claims based on credits, companies in scope of CSRD report credits in assured sustainability statements, the ICVCM’s CCP label is becoming the market’s quality benchmark, and SBTi’s new net-zero standard sets out what credits count for.
None of that makes earlier purchases worthless. It does mean you should know exactly what you hold before you report it, talk about it or buy more. A carbon credit portfolio review gives you that picture.
The short answer. Review your carbon credit portfolio in six steps: list every purchase, check the retirement evidence, test each project against today’s benchmarks, check the claims you made, check how you reported the credits, and decide what to do next. Most of it takes a few hours with your contracts and the public registries.
Why review your credits now
Three changes make a review worthwhile in 2026.
Claims. Since 27 September 2026, EmpCo bans claims that a product is carbon neutral or compensated because of credits, and generic “climate neutral company” claims without recognised excellent performance. Claims based on older purchases may still be live on your website or packaging. Our guide to carbon neutral claims under EmpCo explains what changed.
Reporting. For companies reporting under CSRD, carbon credits appear in an assured sustainability statement. Auditors ask for retirement evidence and expect credits to be reported separately from your emissions.
Benchmarks. The ICVCM Core Carbon Principles and their CCP label give buyers a common reference point that did not exist when many credits were bought. SBTi’s Net-Zero Standard V2.0 adds requirements for removals from 2035.
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Step 1: List every purchase
Start with your contracts, invoices and certificates. For each purchase, record:
Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
Project name and registry project ID | Without the ID you cannot check anything in the registry |
Standard (Verra, Gold Standard, ACR, Puro.earth, …) | Determines which registry to look in and which rules applied |
Credit type | Avoidance, nature-based removal or durable removal |
Vintage | The year the reduction or removal took place |
Volume in tonnes | What you paid for |
Retirement status and date | Retired, or still held by the supplier? |
Beneficiary | Retired in your company’s name, or in a pooled account? |
Supplier and contract | Who to ask the questions in steps 2 and 3 |
Unknown fields are findings in their own right. A purchase without a project ID or retirement evidence is the first thing to follow up with your supplier.
Step 2: Check the retirement evidence in the registry
Every credit should be retired in a public registry, with serial numbers, and ideally with your company named as the beneficiary. Look up each project ID in the registry of its standard, for example the Verra registry, the Gold Standard impact registry, the ACR registry or the Puro.earth registry, and find the retirement record.
Questions to answer per purchase:
Do the serial numbers on your certificate match a retirement record in the registry?
Does the record name your company as beneficiary, or a pooled account of the supplier?
Do the retired volume and vintage match what you paid for?
Is a retirement purpose stated, and does it match how you used the credits?
If the credits are not retired yet, they are still an asset you can retire properly, in your name and with the purpose stated, before you communicate about them.
Step 3: Check each project against today’s benchmarks
Treat this step as a list of questions. A project without a label today may still be sound; the aim is to know what is known about it. Our checklist on how to assess carbon credit quality explains each benchmark in more detail.
CCP label. Is the project issued under a programme the ICVCM has assessed as CCP-Eligible, and is the methodology CCP-Approved? Registries such as Verra, Gold Standard and ACR now show the CCP label on eligible credits. If there is no label, ask your supplier whether the methodology is approved or still under assessment.
Methodology and version. Which methodology and version was used for your vintage? Methodologies are revised, and older versions sometimes used assumptions that were later tightened. Our guide to carbon credit vintages explains when an older vintage says something about quality.
Independent ratings. Is the project rated by an agency such as Sylvera, BeZero or Calyx Global? Headline ratings are often available for free or with a free account.
Project-type questions. For forest protection (REDD+), how was the baseline set, and has it been reassessed? For nature-based removals, has there been a fire or other loss, and how does the buffer pool cover it? For cookstove projects, how was usage measured?
Public scrutiny. Has the project been reported on critically, and how did the developer or standard respond?
Article 6 status. Was a corresponding adjustment applied? For voluntary use, “no” is normal; you just need to know it for your reporting.
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Step 4: Check the claims you made with them
Collect every place where the credits are mentioned: website, product pages, packaging, proposals, annual reports, email signatures and LinkedIn posts. Then ask for each one: does it say or suggest that your emissions, or a product’s emissions, are cancelled? If it does, it needs rewriting.
The replacement is a contribution claim: what you financed, how much, with which standard, and that it does not reduce your own emissions. Our guide to contribution claims gives wording per channel.
Step 5: Check how you reported them
If you report under CSRD or publish a sustainability report, check that:
credits are reported separately from your gross emissions and never netted against them;
the volumes, vintages and project types match the registry records from step 2;
you describe the type of credit correctly, for example not presenting avoidance credits as removals.
Inconsistencies between the report and the registry are what auditors find first.
Step 6: Decide what to do
A review should end in decisions. Typical outcomes:
Keep and communicate accurately. Credits that are retired in your name, with evidence and no open questions, stay in your portfolio and are described as a contribution.
Retire properly. Credits you hold but have not retired: retire them in your name, with the purpose stated, before you use them in any claim.
Ask your supplier. Open points from steps 2 and 3 go to the supplier in writing. The answers, or the lack of them, inform your next purchase.
Rebalance for the future. If your portfolio holds only avoidance credits, plan a growing share of removals. The Oxford Offsetting Principles expect that shift over time, and SBTi V2 requires removals from 2035 for Category A companies. Our article on how many carbon credits your company needs helps size the next steps.
Tip from Bernard de Wit, Co-founder of Regreener: “In most reviews we do, the credits themselves are less of a problem than the paperwork around them. Missing project IDs, certificates without serial numbers, retirements in a broker’s name. Fix that first. A credit you cannot trace to a registry record is one you cannot defend, whatever the project.”
Screen your projects in minutes
Steps 1 to 3 are where most of the time goes. Regreener’s free Quality Checker shortens them: enter up to five projects with what you know about each, and you get the points to verify with your supplier, per project, plus an overview of your portfolio. “Don’t know” is a valid answer; it becomes a point to check. Screen the carbon credits you already hold without sharing supplier names or prices.
For a full review of a larger portfolio, Regreener’s Climate Strategists assess holdings against our 100+ datapoint quality framework. Ask for a free portfolio review.
