Overview:
- Climate solutions company Carbon Direct has issued new guidelines to assist buyers in acquiring low-carbon fuels in the voluntary market.
- The guidance, titled “Criteria for High-Quality Low Carbon Fuels,” is centered around six essential principles, including preventing environmental and social damage, accurate carbon accounting, reducing leakages, proper sourcing of materials, and ensuring additionality—meaning the emissions reductions wouldn’t happen without the revenue from carbon credits.
- Carbon Direct acknowledged the lack of a single framework to help buyers navigate the numerous certifications available, stating that their new criteria aims to address this issue.
Insights:
According to Carbon Direct, the criteria is intended to be a “living resource” that will be revised annually, with future updates likely to include advancements in science and market conditions. Upcoming editions will focus on synthetic fuel pathways, renewable natural gas, and sector-specific applications.
“The voluntary low carbon fuels market is complex and evolving quickly. Our criteria provide buyers a comprehensive and easily accessible set of quality principles that no single current certification can offer,” stated Rohan Raman, Senior Hybrid Decarbonization Engineer at Carbon Direct.
The new low-carbon fuel criteria builds upon the five previous editions of the “High Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal Criteria” created in collaboration with Microsoft, enhancing standards for sustainable forest and agricultural biomass sourcing.
Despite the existence of various carbon dioxide removal (CDR) initiatives in the market, many projects face quality issues, such as inadequate monitoring and reporting systems. The latest criteria aim to address these challenges by setting standards across nine unique pathways, including nature-based solutions like afforestation and soil carbon sequestration, as well as direct air capture and marine carbon removal.