What is Verra?
Verra is a non-profit standard body that administers the Verified Carbon Standard, the largest voluntary greenhouse gas crediting programme in the world. Projects certified under it are issued Verified Carbon Units, each representing one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent of emission reduction or removal.
Verra sets the rules and operates the registry, but it does not itself audit projects. That work falls to accredited validation and verification bodies, which is the separation of duties every credible crediting programme relies on: the body that writes the rules should not also be the body that certifies compliance with them.
Where did the Verified Carbon Standard come from?
The Verified Carbon Standard was founded in 2005 by The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association, the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It was originally named the Voluntary Carbon Standard, and the first VCS Standard took effect in late 2007.
The founding coalition explains a good deal about the programme's character. It was created by business and market institutions to bring order to a voluntary market that was then largely unstandardised, rather than by a regulator or a treaty body. That origin is why VCS reads as market infrastructure rather than as regulation.
How are the VCS programme documents organised?
The VCS Program is a layered set of documents rather than a single rulebook, and knowing which layer answers which question saves a great deal of time.
| Layer | What it governs |
|---|---|
| Program Guide | How the programme as a whole works and how its documents relate |
| VCS Standard | The core rules a project must satisfy |
| Methodology Requirements | The rules that a methodology itself must satisfy |
| Methodologies (VM####) | How to quantify reductions for a specific activity type |
| AFOLU Requirements | Additional rules specific to land-based projects |
| Validation and Verification Manual | How an accredited body must audit against the above |
A project developer generally works from the methodology outwards: the methodology sets the quantification approach and the applicability conditions, and the standard and requirements documents govern everything the methodology does not. Reading the standard alone will not tell you whether your project is eligible. The VCS document library lists each document and what it governs.
Which VCS project types cover land use?
Land-based projects sit in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use category, generally abbreviated AFOLU. The category is subdivided into project types, each with its own methodologies and its own rules on permanence and leakage.
- ARR — afforestation, reforestation and revegetation.
- ALM — agricultural land management.
- IFM — improved forest management.
- REDD — reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
- ACoGS — avoided conversion of grasslands and shrublands.
- WRC — wetlands restoration and conservation.
For most of the work Flora Carbon AI supports, ARR and WRC are the relevant types — see VM0047, the ARR methodology, and VM0033 for tidal wetland and seagrass restoration. Which type a project falls under is determined by the activity on the ground, not by preference, and it is settled early because it determines which methodology applies. The land-based methodology catalogue sets out the five that matter.
How do Verra credits differ from CCTS certificates?
A Verified Carbon Unit is an instrument of a private international standard, held in Verra's own registry and generally sold bilaterally or through brokers. A Carbon Credit Certificate under India's CCTS is created under Indian law, held in a registry operated by Grid Controller of India, and traded on India's power exchanges.
Both represent one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, but they are not interchangeable, and the same reduction cannot be certified under both. See CCTS compared with the voluntary market for how to think about that choice.