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Climate protection projects
Validation and verification
Emission reductions
For the global climate, it does not matter where greenhouse gases are saved. Each reduction benefits the global climate equally. Unavoidable emissions can therefore be offset elsewhere – for example in certified climate protection projects.
If a buyer is willing to pay a purchase price for the resulting emission reductions, this approach can be used to create an incentive for investments in climate-friendly technologies or reforestation projects, for example.
Various carbon markets and climate protection programs use this aspect, especially to involve the private sector as an investor. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change proved extremely successful in 2005 – 2012, when the EU Emissions Trading Scheme also accepted certificates generated in this way to offset emissions from its own industrial plants.
The CORSIA climate protection instrument is an offsetting mechanism designed to make the growth of international air traffic carbon neutral from 2020. CORSIA also focuses on climate protection projects.
Another buyer for emission reductions is found in the voluntary market. This serves to generate climate-neutral products, services or companies, i.e. emissions compensation.
Companies (or individuals) calculate the emissions of their activities. They buy emission certificates in the same amount and set them aside.
These measures serve communication purposes and are thus intended, for example, to increase the sales of a product among certain customer groups or generally to enhance a company’s reputation among the public by highlighting its climate policy commitment. Specially imposed standards are often used for this purpose.
Requirements for the content of a project documentation and a monitoring report of a climate protection project can be found in ISO 14064-2. The validation or verification criteria can be defined between the client (usually the project owner) and the implementing verification organization, but usually reference is made to a valid set of regulations (e.g., the UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism) or recognized (voluntary) standards (e.g., Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard).
The ISO 14064-3 standard provides guidance on the validation and verification of greenhouse gas declarations. Validation is a systematic, independent and documented process for assessing the project documentation of a (planned) climate protection project in relation to the agreed validation criteria. By analogy, verification is a systematic, independent, and documented process for assessing a report on the achieved emission reductions of a realized climate protection project in relation to the agreed verification criteria.
verico SCE is accredited by the German Accreditation Body (DAkkS) as a testing organization according to ISO 14065 also for the validation and verification of climate protection projects according to ISO 14064-2. Our members have been involved as lead auditors in numerous validations and verifications since the beginning of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol ‘s flexible mechanisms.
Our leadership team is actively represented on the ISO Committee on ISO 14065, and participates as stakeholders in the annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences.
