The voluntary carbon market has been through a credibility reckoning, and it did not collapse — it split. Demand and price are concentrating on credits that can withstand scrutiny, while questionable supply is being discounted or stranded. Two bodies now define what integrity means, and they address different halves of the problem: ICVCM governs the integrity of the credit itself, and VCMI governs the integrity of the claims a company makes when it uses one.
The two sides of integrity
Supply-side integrity asks: is this credit real, additional and durable? Demand-side integrity asks: is the company using it making an honest claim, on top of genuine reductions? A high-quality credit attached to a misleading claim still creates headline risk — and a careful claim built on weak credits collapses on inspection. You need both.
ICVCM and the Core Carbon Principles
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) sets the supply-side benchmark through its Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) — a set of ten principles covering effective governance, additionality, permanence, robust quantification, no double counting, and sustainable-development safeguards. ICVCM assesses carbon-crediting programmes and methodologies against an Assessment Framework, and credits that qualify can carry a CCP label. The label is a powerful first filter — but it is a floor for quality, not a substitute for project-level due diligence.
VCMI and the Claims Code of Practice
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) addresses the demand side through its Claims Code of Practice. It sets out how a company can credibly say it has used carbon credits — through tiered claims (such as Silver, Gold and Platinum) — but only after meeting foundational criteria first: maintaining a greenhouse-gas inventory, setting and pursuing near-term science-based targets, and disclosing progress. In other words, VCMI makes credits something you earn the right to claim, after you are already cutting emissions.
The rule that matters most
Across every credible framework, the same principle holds: credits do not substitute for reduction. Reduce emissions across your own operations and value chain first; use high-integrity credits for genuinely residual emissions and for contribution beyond your value chain. The SBTi, for example, does not allow offsets to count toward reduction targets at all. Any strategy that leans on credits in place of cutting emissions will not survive scrutiny.
What makes a credit high-integrity
- Additionality: the reduction or removal would not have happened anyway.
- Permanence and durability: the carbon stays out of the atmosphere, with reversal risk managed — engineered removals score highest here.
- Robust baselines and quantification: conservative, verifiable methods, not inflated counterfactuals.
- No double counting and no leakage: the reduction is claimed once, and not simply pushed elsewhere.
- Co-benefits and safeguards: positive outcomes for communities and ecosystems, with social protections in place.
Buyer due diligence in practice
Treat procurement as a risk-management discipline. Use the CCP label as a starting filter, then screen project by project on the criteria above, plus registry status, vintage, and reversal risk. Expect to reject a meaningful share of what you screen — that is the point of screening. A portfolio assembled this way holds its value and protects the claims built on it.
ICVCM and VCMI frameworks continue to evolve; confirm the current Core Carbon Principles, Assessment Framework and Claims Code requirements with each body before relying on them.
Sources & further reading
This article is general information, not legal, financial or compliance advice. The regulations and standards referenced here evolve; verify the current position with the issuing body, or ask us. Published June 2026.