For years every standard claimed its credits were high quality, and buyers had no common yardstick to compare them. The Core Carbon Principles are that yardstick. They do not settle every quality question, but they have become the benchmark that buyers, claims frameworks and suppliers refer to.
The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are ten quality principles for carbon credits set by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM). The ICVCM assesses standards and methodologies against them, and only credits that pass both checks can carry the CCP label. This article explains the ten principles, how approval works, what has been approved so far and what the label leaves to your own due diligence.
Who the ICVCM is
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market is an independent governance body for the supply side of the voluntary market: it judges the quality of credits, not the claims buyers make with them. Claims are the territory of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) and, for target setting, SBTi (voluntary carbon market explained).
The ten Core Carbon Principles
Group | Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
Governance | Effective governance | the programme is well run and accountable |
Tracking | credits are tracked in a registry with unique identifiers | |
Transparency | project documents and data are public | |
Robust independent third-party validation and verification | accredited auditors check projects and results | |
Emissions impact | Additionality | the reduction or removal would not happen without carbon finance |
Permanence | storage is lasting, and reversals are compensated | |
Robust quantification | tonnes are calculated conservatively | |
No double counting | each tonne is claimed only once | |
Sustainable development | Sustainable development benefits and safeguards | projects do no harm and respect rights |
Contribution to the net-zero transition | the activity is not locked into high-emission pathways |
The full text is on the ICVCM website. For the two hardest criteria, see our guides to additionality and permanence.
How approval works: two ticks
The ICVCM checks at two levels:
Programme level. Is the standard itself (its governance, registry, audit and safeguards rules) good enough? Programmes that pass become CCP-Eligible.
Methodology level. Does a specific methodology, such as a reforestation or cookstove method, meet the principles on additionality, permanence and quantification? Methodologies that pass become CCP-Approved, sometimes with conditions.
Only a credit from a CCP-Approved methodology, issued under a CCP-Eligible programme, can carry the CCP label. The registry of the standard applies the label to the credits; buyers can see it next to the serial numbers. Some approvals are conditional, which means a project only qualifies if it meets an extra requirement, so check the condition, not just the methodology name.
What is approved as of August 2026
The ICVCM’s assessment tables showed 13 CCP-Eligible programmes and 45 CCP-Approved methodologies in August 2026 (ICVCM assessment status). In broad terms:
Category | Examples of approved methodologies |
|---|---|
Reforestation and agroforestry | Verra VM0047, ACR afforestation, Isometric reforestation, agroforestry and mangrove restoration |
Biochar and durable removals | Puro.earth and Verra biochar methods, biomass and bio-oil geological storage, BECCS, direct air capture |
Clean cooking | Gold Standard metered methods and other cookstove methods |
Forest protection and management | jurisdictional REDD+ (ART TREES, Verra JNR), Verra VM0048, improved forest management |
Methane and industrial gases | landfill gas, methane leak detection and repair, coal mine methane, ODS destruction, adipic acid |
Agriculture | rice cultivation and soil carbon methods |
Renewable energy | Verra VMR0017, approved with a condition on financial additionality |
Renewable energy shows how strict the process can be. In August 2024 the ICVCM approved none of the renewable energy methodologies submitted to it, because the tools for proving additionality were too weak. In April 2026 it approved Verra’s revised method only where a benchmark analysis shows that carbon revenue decisively changes the project’s economics (additionality explained).
For credits that carry the label today, see our overview of CCP-labelled carbon credits.
What the CCP label does not tell you
The label is a floor. Four things it does not cover:
The individual project. Approval is for a methodology. Two projects under the same method can differ widely in baseline choices, monitoring and management.
Older credits. The label applies to credits issued under approved methodology versions; many credits on the market predate them.
Co-benefits beyond safeguards. The CCPs require that projects do no harm; they do not rank how much good they do (co-benefits).
Price fairness and contract terms. Those remain between you and your supplier.
That is why independent ratings from BeZero, Sylvera and Calyx still matter, and why buyers keep their own due diligence (carbon credit rating agencies compared).
Tip from Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener: “Treat the CCP label as an entry ticket. In our screening, a credit without a label needs a very good reason to stay in the running. A credit with a label still goes through the same project checks as any other.”
Why the CCPs matter for your claims
Claims frameworks build on the CCPs. The VCMI’s Claims Code of Practice treats CCP-labelled credits as its benchmark for high-quality credits, so companies that want to make a VCMI claim increasingly need labelled credits (VCMI Claims Code). For a contribution claim under EU consumer rules, the label is not a legal requirement, but it is the clearest public evidence that the credits behind your claim meet a recognised standard (contribution claims).
What to check
Is the credit CCP-labelled in the registry? Look for the label on the serial numbers, not only in a brochure.
Is the approval conditional? If so, ask how the project meets the condition.
Which methodology version? Labels apply to specific versions.
Project-level quality: baseline, monitoring, rating.
Fit with your claim: VCMI, contribution claim or SBTi removal requirement.
Our quality framework uses the CCPs as one of its inputs, and our free credit quality checker shows whether a project’s methodology is approved.
“The Core Carbon Principles gave the market a shared language for quality. That alone has changed sales conversations: suppliers now have to say which methodology a credit comes from and whether it passed, instead of calling everything premium.”
Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener
Is the methodology behind your credits approved?
Our free credit quality checker shows whether a project’s methodology is CCP-Approved and scores the project on additionality, permanence and quantification.
