Environmental markets
Carbon markets
Gold Standard was founded to ensure that projects in carbon markets represent the highest levels of environmental integrity and deliver verified sustainable development benefits to local communities and ecosystems.
The latest IPCC report>> highlights the urgency to fully decarbonize our global economy. Carbon markets help accelerate the transition to net-zero emissions by enabling businesses and individuals to take accountability for their unavoidable emissions and help finance the global transition to zero carbon. This helps close the emissions gap left by countries commitments under the Paris Agreement, the finance gap where urgently needed climate action is not yet funded, and the time gap that favors action today over waiting for sufficient policy measures from governments.
Why finance Emissions Reductions
Financing emission reductions beyond one's own footprint is a core component of climate action for companies and individuals alike. Doing so by purchasing Gold Standard carbon credits can help:
- Deliver on Best Practice Climate Action—Contribute to the Paris Agreement by making a direct investment in the low-carbon transition by supporting climate protection projects.
- Make an impact toward SDG priorities—Gold Standard certification requires ALL projects to follow stringent environmental and social safeguarding principles, while also delivering multiple certified SDG impacts. These SDG impacts are quantified according to Gold Standard approved methodologies for credible and comparable claims.
- Gain recognition by civil society – NGOs are increasingly calling for accountability for one's full carbon footprint as part of a credible climate strategy.
All Gold Standard carbon credits represent the reduction or removal of one tonne of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), plus the SDG benefits associated with the project from which they are issued.
CERs
Gold Standard labels for Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) for compliance targets
VERs
Gold Standard Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) for voluntary climate action
Why choose Gold Standard
Gold Standard was founded by WWF and other NGOs to serve as the benchmark in carbon markets -- ensuring that projects adhered to the highest levels of environmental integrity and delivered sustainable development benefits to local communities. Gold Standard continues to represent the best that can be achieved in carbon markets, featuring:
- The most stringent environmental and social safeguards – required, not optional
- Local stakeholder consultation – required, not optional
- Gender-sensitive project design – required, not optional
- Multiple contributions to sustainable development – required, not optional
- Higher environmental integrity due to the exclusion of project types with greater risks and negative impacts (e.g., fossil fuel switch or large hydropower projects that can threaten local wildlife)
- Civil society endorsement from our NGO Supporter Network
Following our mantra of "Making good better," we are currently developing SDG Impact Tools to standardise and simplify impact monitoring and measurement for improved credibility and comparability of claims from one project to another.
This rigour translates into greater impact and higher value. In fact, Gold Standard climate protection projects deliver up to $465 in additional value toward the SDGs for every tonne of CO2 mitigated.
VALUE CREATED FROM CERTIFIED PROJECTS
What buyers of Gold Standard carbon credits can claim
- Contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement and SDG 13 – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by financing a direct and quantifiable impact on climate change mitigation that is monitored, verified and certified Gold Standard.
- ‘Carbon Neutral,’ ‘Climate Neutral,’ or ‘Climate Positive’ claims – If your purchase of emission reductions is equivalent to or greater than your carbon footprint, this can be used to meet ‘carbon neutral,’ ‘climate neutral,’ and ‘climate positive’ claims. For credibility, it is critical that businesses first adopt a emissions reduction target in line with science before turning attention to emission reductions beyond their boundaries and making 'climate neutral' or other claims.
- Contributions to other SDGs - You may also describe the certified impacts toward other Sustainable Development Goals that the project you supported has delivered. **If you are considering purchasing carbon credits, beware of projects certified under other standards that claim SDG contributions without verification and/or without following safeguards to mitigate any negative impacts.
