Your company has made the decision to purchase carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Now comes a crucial step—choosing the right registry to verify your credits.
Registries are the certification layer that ensure that CDR purchases have genuine climate impact and contribute to an organization’s sustainability goals. They write the scientific rules that suppliers must follow, conduct the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of the carbon removal and storage activities, and then (when these rules have been followed accurately), issue one credit per tonne of carbon dioxide removed.
Unfortunately, not all registries have met this bar, which is why investigations have found that the majority of credits issued by incumbent registries have not had the climate impact they’ve claimed.
So how does a registry fit into buying CDR?
The carbon credit purchase cycle
There are four key steps involved in a credit purchase:
- The buyer agrees to pay the supplier for removal activity (price per tonne multiplied by the number of credits). The buyer also selects a registry to verify the supplier’s claims. The financial incentives of registries are a crucial aspect that we’ll come back to later.
- The registry conducts the MRV on the supplier’s carbon dioxide removal and storage activities. This includes ensuring that rigorous scientific rules are followed (for example, ensuring a minimum number and type of measurements are used to guarantee statistical significance of an activity).
- The registry calculates the net carbon dioxide removed, accounting for all emissions resulting from the supplier’s activity from removing and storing the carbon dioxide. The registry then issues credits to the supplier (ensuring one net tonne of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere corresponds to one credit issued).
- The supplier then transfers these credits to the buyer (or a marketplace acting on the buyer’s behalf). This can happen quickly, or over a number of years, depending on the agreement with the supplier and the time it takes to remove the carbon dioxide.
A registry should undertake the above activities to a very high standard to support a buyer’s purchase. To help choose one that will do so (and therefore minimize the risk of over-crediting), the below questions can be asked directly to a registry.
How to tell if a registry is high-quality
Scientific rigor
This is the foundation of credible carbon removal.
Ask: “What’s the process you go through to develop your protocols?”, “What is the makeup of your science team and their credentials in carbon removal?” or “Can you give an example where your protocols (or rules) prioritize scientific rigor over the number of credits issued?”.
Look for: Protocols developed by a registry’s in-house science team (incentivized to ensure quality), rather than by a supplier (incentivized to maximize the number of credits issued). A top registry can point to where their rules may result in fewer credits issued, rather than more.
Transparency
Most registries log credit and verification information as 300-page PDF data dumps on a website. But true transparency makes complex information accessible and understandable to all stakeholders.
Ask: "Can you show how the full calculations behind a single credit can be broken down on your registry?" or “Can you show me what measurements were taken to verify the claims, and the evidence behind those measurements?”.
Look for: A clear, visible and understandable demonstration, not just promises of transparency.
Financial incentive alignment
This is crucial. Registries can end up over-crediting (issuing credits later found to be worthless) if the supplier pays them on a per-credit-issued basis. If the registry is paid a flat fee to conduct MRV by the buyer (regardless of the number of credits issued), to protect the buyer’s purchase, then conflicts of interest are minimized.
Ask: "Who exactly pays you—suppliers or buyers?”, “How does your business model ensure you're working in our best interests versus for your suppliers’?”, and “Do you get paid more if you issue more credits?”.
Look for: A model that demonstrably prioritizes credit quality over quantity, where the registry is paid by the buyer, not supplier.
Assumptions versus reality
Ex post credits are credits issued only after all activity has been completed (versus ex ante, where credits are issued before the activity is completed). Historically, most issues with inflated or incorrect credit issuances have been from registries that calculate ex ante (ex post aren't exempt from problems—the above questions can help you there).
As a starting point, be sure to ask the registry that what you're getting is ex post.
Getting what you’ve paid for
It’s easy to think that the quality of credit is driven primarily by the choice of supplier. In reality, the scientific rigor of the registry’s protocols are a critical determinant of whether the credits you receive are credible.
A safe way to ensure you receive high-quality credits is to ask a registry you trust which suppliers have met their scientific bar and then buy credits from one of those suppliers. Alternatively, you can do the reverse—tell the supplier or marketplace you’re buying from that you only want credits issued by a certain registry.
Isometric is the only registry that is not paid by the suppliers it credits. It produces the most scientifically rigorous rules for what qualifies as net carbon removal and presents calculation data in an intuitive and simple format for all stakeholders.
Now that you are equipped with the information to choose the right registry, you can consider the next steps of making your second CDR purchase.
