What is additionality and why do carbon projects need to be “additional”?
All carbon credit projects must be “additional”, meaning that the activity wouldn’t have occurred in the absence of the carbon market. This is essential because carbon credit buyers shouldn’t be financing activities via carbon credit revenue that would have occurred anyway. All projects are required to provide evidence that the emission reductions or removals are […]
- All carbon credit projects must be “additional”, meaning that the activity wouldn’t have occurred in the absence of the carbon market. This is essential because carbon credit buyers shouldn’t be financing activities via carbon credit revenue that would have occurred anyway.
- All projects are required to provide evidence that the emission reductions or removals are not “business as usual”. All projects must quantify a baseline, which is the total quantity of emissions in a specific timeframe that occurred prior to the implementation of the project.
- Additionality can be assessed in different ways, examples from a project-specific approach include:
- Financial – demonstrating that the project activity would not have been possible without carbon finance.
- Regulatory – demonstrating that the project activity is not legally required, or goes beyond any relevant compliance requirements.
- Common practice – demonstrating that the project implements an activity that is not common practice.
- Each internationally-recognized standards body has its own methods for assessing additionality.
