Effectiveness and legitimacy of forest carbon standards in the OTC voluntary carbon market

Table 1 Overview fundamental components of forest carbon standards

Standard	A/R CDM	American Carbon Registry (ACR)	CarbonFix Standard (CFS)	Climate Action Reserve (CAR)	Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards (CCBS)	ISO 14064-2/3:2006	Plan Vivo Standards	Social Carbon Standard	Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)
Eligible project location	Non-Annex I countries	Globally	Globally	United States of America	Globally	Globally	Developing countries	Globally	Globally
Baseline/Additionality	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	o	✔	o	✔
Leakage	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	o	✔	o	✔
Quantification and accounting of GHGs	✔	✔	✔	✔	✓	✔	✔	o	✔
Permanence	✔	✔	✔	✔	Not applicable	o	✔	Not applicable	✔
Environmental and social performance	✓	✓	✔	✓	✔	o	✔	✔	✓
Monitoring guidance	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
3 ^rd -party validation/verification	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✓	✔	✔
Accreditation of validators/verifiers	✔	✓	✓	✓	✓	✔	✓	✓	✔
Prevention of double counting	w	✔	✔	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	✔	Not applicable	✔
Independent registry	✔	✓	✔	✓	Not applicable	Not applicable	✔	✔	✔
Guidance on ownership & liabilities for GHG reversals	✔	✔	✔	✔	✓	Not applicable	✔	Not applicable	✔

✔ = The standard sets regulation on the fundamental component
✓ = The standard partially sets regulation on the fundamental component
○ = The standards does set regulation on the fundamental component
Not applicable = Due to the scope of the standard, this criteria does require regulation
The table is based on the review of the respective standards documents and the respective websites of each standard [16–28]

ISSN: 1750-0680