Indoor cooking on smoky stoves, mangrove forests stripped bare, traffic-clogged streets choked with exhaust, unsafe water sources forcing families to boil water over open fires. These challenges drive climate change, degrade ecosystems and limit opportunities for communities worldwide.
The solutions already exist. Clean cooking technologies slash air pollution and halve wood consumption, easing pressure on forests and protecting health. Restored mangroves store five times more carbon than land forests, shield coastlines from storms and support livelihoods. Low-carbon transport systems replace high-emission journeys with efficient, affordable mobility. Safe water access eliminates the need to burn fuel to make water safe to drink, cutting Co2 while improving public health.
The Gold Standard Marketplace connects your investment directly to solutions like these, high-integrity projects that cut greenhouse gas emissions, create measurable benefits for people and nature while helping to close the gap on global climate targets.
Why it matters
Even the most committed companies have ongoing emissions they cannot yet eliminate. How those emissions are addressed can mean the difference between a credible climate claim and an empty promise which risks greenwashing. The Gold Standard Marketplace exists to make this choice simple, transparent and impactful for communities, the planet and the buyer.
Carbon credits are not about neutralising your carbon footprint. They are about investing in safe water, clean air, resilient forests or renewable energy access, contributing to outcomes which deliver genuine climate results and lasting benefits beyond carbon reductions for communities worldwide.
The Gold Standard difference
When you purchase credits through the Gold Standard Marketplace you are supporting projects that deliver real climate impact, and are designed and implemented to the highest standards of integrity.
Every project:
- Contributes to at least three UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Is developed with gender-sensitive design principles
- Includes consultation with local stakeholders
- Follows rigorous environmental and safeguarding requirements
This ensures that the impact you fund is measurable, transparent and creates lasting value for people and nature.
A marketplace that puts smaller projects on the map
By purchasing through our Marketplace, you shine a brighter spotlight on projects that often aren’t able to reach global buyers. Your support enables them to scale up, fund new initiatives and drive even more measurable change for their communities and ecosystems.
Every project is certified under rigorous criteria, independently verified and publicly traceable in our Impact Registry.
Global reach and local benefits
With projects across the world, the Marketplace spans safe water, clean cooking, renewable energy, waste management, nature-based removals and more.
A single purchase could mean:
- a family breathing cleaner air at home,
- children free from waterborne disease.
- reliable and affordable electricity for rural communities that doesn’t pollute the air they breathe
With these solutions families save time, reduce household costs, improve health and unlock new opportunities for education and income.
Maximising value for both people and the planet
Eighty-five percent of your spend goes straight to project developers, helping to sustain and expand their impact. The remaining 15 percent covers essential costs like payment processing, currency exchange and maintaining the Marketplace for real-time retirement of credits. Nothing hidden.
See exactly where your contribution goes
You choose your projects, complete your purchase and retire your credits instantly. A personalised certificate shows exactly where and how your funds were used. This is climate action that you can stand behind in your sustainability reporting and that your stakeholders can trust.
Be part of the story
Since 2003, Gold Standard projects have delivered over 8,000 verified contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals and generated more than $59 billion in shared value for communities. We are on track to reach $100 billion in shared value by 2030 and every purchase in the Marketplace brings us closer to achieving that goal.
The road to net zero needs more than ambition. It needs action you can prove and impact you can see. Explore the Gold Standard Marketplace and make every tonne count.
