Voluntary Carbon Standard Update

Since late 2005, The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the World Economic Forum Global Greenhouse Register have been working together to develop the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). The VCS is designed to be a global benchmark standard for project-based voluntary emission reductions that provides a degree of standardization to the voluntary carbon market and creates a credible voluntary emission reduction credit, the VCU.

Version 1 of the VCS was released for consultation on 28 March 2006. 65 Climate Group and IETA members and partners provided written comments on version 1.  Comments were incorporated into version 2 of the VCS which was released as a consultation document on 18 October 2006. 60 submissions were received on version 2. VCUs issued under version 1 will be grandfathered, However, the final version of the VCS is yet to be finalised.

An independent Steering Committee (SC) has been established to review the responses to the two consultations and approve a final operating version of the VCS, rules for accrediting verifiers and registries and the Standard’s future governance. Within the SC, seven working groups have been established to address the submissions and other outstanding issues from VCS version 2.  The working groups cover VCS governance, additionality, general policy issues (e.g. forward crediting), validation and verification, performance standard approaches, registries and land use, land use change and forestry. 

Once the working groups have completed their work, the VCS will be re-drafted based on their recommendations.  The VCS Steering Committee has also decided to use the ISO 14064/65 series as a backbone for the standard.  We are aiming to launch the final VCS around the middle of 2007. 

If you have any questions or comments please contact the VCS secretariat:

Yoko Chivers, International Emissions Trading Association,
+1 416 487 8591