Thoughts on Ed Miliband’s new UK Government Principles for Voluntary Carbon and Nature Market

A few general observations on UK Government Principles for Voluntary Carbon and Nature Market Integrity published by Ed Miliband and his team 3 days ago:

1)      It's short which is a good thing. Only 10 pages to read with straightforward calls to action for businesses to get or continue working on their sustainability and Net Zero goals.

 2)      It deals with climate mitigation and nature restoration TOGETHER which is great to see (viz. previous blog on this on our website entitled: Climate change and nature – why do we have two COPs for one issue?

 3)      It highlights the importance of reducing emissions, then using the Voluntary Carbon Market to offset unavoidable carbon.

 4)      It explains the importance of high integrity carbon and nature credits and how to recognise them - particularly through the application of a rigorous due diligence and risk management process.

 5)      It covers standards (particularly the ICVCM and the VCMI) and how it is vital that only carbon offsets that align to these standards should be considered ‘high integrity’ and therefore trusted and purchased.

 6)      It discusses the current size and projected growth of the Voluntary Carbon Market. To quote from the report: “The UK will likely need to more than double current capital investment levels in low-carbon sectors from £60 billion in 2023 to over £130 billion each year by the 2030s to achieve our Mission of accelerating to net zero.”

This aligns well with Nature Broking;

According to the report, high integrity credits should

-          Represent activity additional to that required by law at the project level - √

-          Be generated through the application of conservative baselines - √  

-          Not be double counted - √

-          Be subject to independent validation and verification - √  

-          Be accompanied by measures to compensate for any reversal of the activities’ outcomes - √

At Nature Broking we not only sell credits which tick all the right boxes but, at the same time, create portfolios of high impact, high integrity climate and nature offsets which allow our clients to achieve their sustainability goals and be confident in the knowledge that they are adhering to these and other standards.

This enables our clients to trust us to look after their climate and nature investment for the long term.