How to Read a Carbon Credit Listing, Field by Field

A listing on our marketplace packs a lot into a small space. Each field answers a question a buyer will eventually be asked by a finance team, an auditor or, for airlines, the national authority. Reading them carefully before you enquire means your first conversation with us is about the right lots.

Below we take the fields in the order most buyers find useful, with a note on what to ask about each.

Name, developer, country and category

The developer is the organisation that runs the project on the ground and usually holds the credits first. The country is the host country, where the emission reductions or removals actually happen. The category (Forestry, Renewable, Blue Carbon, Agriculture, Waste & Biogas or Industrial) is a quick label for the kind of activity.

Worth asking: is the seller the developer, or an intermediary holding the units? Both are normal, but it changes who signs the transfer and whose documents you will see.

Registry and registry ID

The registry is the programme under which credits are issued and tracked, such as Verra's Verified Carbon Standard, Gold Standard or Global Carbon Council. The registry ID is the project's own number on that registry.

This is the most useful field on the page, because it lets you look the project up yourself on the registry's public website. There you can see the project's status, how many credits have been issued, and how many have already been retired. We are a marketplace; the registry is the official record.

Worth asking: does the public registry page match what the listing says? If you spot a difference, raise it with us before going further. Carbon registries and serial numbers explains how to search a registry.

Methodology

A methodology is the approved rulebook a project follows to calculate its emission reductions or removals: how the baseline is set, what is measured and how often. It usually appears as a code, such as a reference beginning "VM" for Verra methodologies or "AMS" for small-scale methods from the UN's Clean Development Mechanism.

You do not need to read the methodology in full. What matters is that it is current, suits the activity, and is accepted for your purpose. Some buyers, and some compliance schemes, exclude particular methodologies.

Project type: removal, reduction or avoidance

This field describes what the project does to the atmosphere.

• Removal projects take carbon dioxide out of the air and store it, for example trees growing on land that had none.
• Reduction projects cut emissions from a source that would otherwise keep emitting, such as capturing methane from a waste site.
• Avoidance projects prevent emissions that would have happened in their absence, for example renewable power displacing coal-fired generation on the grid.

The distinction matters most for claims. Many corporate net-zero frameworks expect removals for residual emissions, while reductions and avoidance are commonly used for interim goals. Ask your sustainability lead which type your target allows before shortlisting.

Delivery

Each listing is marked Spot, Issued or Forward. This tells you whether the credits already exist and how quickly they could reach you. Forward lots are credits a project expects to generate in future, so they carry delivery risk. We cover the trade-offs in Spot, Issued and Forward credits.

Volume, vintage and price

Volume is shown in tCO₂e, tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. One credit represents one tonne.

Vintage is the year in which the reductions or removals took place. Vintage matters for two reasons: some buyers prefer recent years, and compliance schemes such as CORSIA accept only units within a defined vintage window.

Price is in US dollars per tCO₂e and is indicative. It becomes firm only after we confirm availability, vintage, registry details and eligibility in writing. See how prices are quoted for what can change between listing and contract.

Worth asking: is the whole volume a single vintage, or a mix? A lot spanning several years can be fine, but each year should be priced and documented separately.

UN SDG goals

The coloured tiles show which of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals the project says it supports, such as clean water, gender equality or decent work. These are co-benefits, beyond the carbon itself.

Some programmes, Gold Standard in particular, require projects to evidence their SDG contributions through monitoring. Under others, the tiles may reflect the developer's own assessment. If co-benefits are central to your reporting, ask how each one is measured.

Project statistics

The project statistics block groups three numbers:

Read them as a set. A project whose issuances run well below its estimated annual reductions may have had monitoring or verification delays, which is worth understanding, especially before a forward purchase. A large available volume relative to issued to date may mean the seller holds most of the project's output.

Turning a listing into an enquiry

Before you contact us, note for each shortlisted lot: registry and ID, methodology, project type, vintage, delivery and the quantity you want. That is enough for us to hold the lot, confirm the details in writing and prepare the project documents for your review.

When a listing raises a question these notes do not answer, send it to the desk and we will check it against the registry record with you.