First do no harm: safeguards in carbon projects
Safeguards are essential for creating high-integrity carbon projects, because they improve the likelihood of carbon outcomes, increase beyond-carbon benefits, and minimise the risk of negative impacts.
While not all carbon standards require the use of safeguards, meta-standards like the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) provide some guidance.
Identifying the safeguards that a carbon project has in place can be difficult because of inconsistencies in requirements and reporting.
BeZero Carbon offers project-specific safeguard information for carbon projects on the Beyond Carbon dashboard. Platform users can see the safeguards evidenced in publicly available project documents for each rated project.
Contents
What are safeguards?
Safeguards ecosystem
BeZero classification of safeguard requirements
Conclusion
Appendix A. Safeguard definitions
Appendix B. Standards body safeguards requirements breakdown
Appendix C. Table 2 and 3 footnotes
Appendix D. Additional safeguards required by standards bodies
References