Newsletter

June 2025 VCM Updates: Section A

sustainacraft Newsletter

26 6月 2025 • 9 min read

This article is an automatically translated version of the original Japanese article. Please refer to the Japanese version for the most accurate information.

This is a newsletter from Sustainacraft Inc. This article is Section A (Market Trends) of VCM Updates (Voluntary Carbon Market Updates).

-«Structure of VCM Updates»

A. Voluntary Carbon Credit Market Trends ← Subject of this article

B. Trends in Major Overseas Regulations

Introduction

Regarding Credit Issuance, Retirement, Investment Trends, and Project Pipeline Trends

Regarding Credit Issuance, the total issuance volume for April-May was 48.1 million units. While there are some fluctuations, credit Issuance exceeding 40 million units has been recorded, similar to the past three years. A notable characteristic is that the proportion of Issuances from VCS has decreased since 2024 when looking at the registry breakdown.

The total Retirement volume for April-May was 24.3 million units. While there are some fluctuations, credit Retirement exceeding 20 million units has been recorded, similar to the past three years. Looking at the registries, VCS and Gold Standard account for the majority. When examining project types, energy projects are the most dominant, with REDD+, Nature-based Solutions, and non-CO2 projects sharing the remainder, showing no significant change in this structure.

Regarding investment trends, this month we introduce five notable investments in Nature-based Solutions and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) projects. Three of these are by Microsoft, with particularly large Offtake Agreements from ARR projects totaling 18 million tons and Biochar projects totaling 1.24 million tons, which are noteworthy.

Regarding new project Pipelines, May saw the Registration of 60 Nature-based Solutions projects and 9 CDR projects. We will discuss developments such as REDD+ and ARR projects emerging from the Philippines, a country that previously did not have many forest-related projects; a CORSIA-eligible VM0033 (Mangrove) project from Tanzania, which has a track record of Issuing Article 6 labels; and AWD projects from JCM signatory countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Laos, with Bangladesh potentially becoming a prominent country in this area.

A. Voluntary Carbon Credit Market Trends

A-1: Credit Issuance, Retirement, and Investment Trend Analysis

- Target Registries: VCS (Verra), GS (Gold Standard), CAR (Climate Action Reserve), ACR (American Carbon Registry), ART-TREES, Puro (Puro.earth), Isometric
- Target Period: April-May 2025
- Note: Please be aware that companies that have Retired Credits are not obligated to register with registries under their real names, and therefore, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Also, there may be delays in reflection to registries, so please note that there is a possibility of changes in the number of projects or their status during the target period.

Issuance and Retirement figures for the target period are as follows:

Issuance Performance: 48.1 million (116% year-on-year)
- While there are some fluctuations, credit Issuance exceeding 40 million units has been recorded, similar to the past three years.
- A notable characteristic, when looking at the registry breakdown, is a significant decrease in Issuances from VCS compared to previous periods.
- Looking at type-specific data, the proportion of Issuances from ACR's non-CO2 projects and Gold Standard's energy projects has increased, which is presumed to be the influencing factor.
Retirement Performance: 24.3 million (117% year-on-year)
- Regarding Retirement volume, while there are some fluctuations, credit Retirement exceeding 20 million units has been recorded, similar to the past three years.
- Looking at the registries, VCS and Gold Standard account for the majority. When examining project types, energy projects are the most dominant, with REDD+, Nature-based Solutions, and non-CO2 projects sharing the remainder, showing no significant change in this structure.

Below are the top 10 projects for which Credits were Issued in May 2025.

Please note that the Credit labels (CORSIA, CCP, Article 6, Removals) displayed above are all based on information provided by each certification body (registry). Therefore, please keep the following in mind:

Even if the Methodology itself is CORSIA-eligible or CCP-approved, it will not be counted as a labeled Credit in the table above unless the registry data includes the label information.
Only VCS and GS registries provide information on Article 6 labels.

Credit Issuances exceeding 970,000 units from the Fugitive Emissions project in Bangladesh (VCS-3021) have been assigned CCP labels. Additionally, although not in the top rankings of this table, Article 6 labels have been assigned to 115,000 units for the Cookstoves project in Gambia (VCS-4000) and 40,000 units for the energy-saving project in Cambodia (VCS-3052), respectively.

Below is a list of the top 10 Nature-based Solutions projects with the highest Retirement volume in May 2025.

The top 10 companies that Retired Credits from Nature-based Solutions projects in May 2025 are as follows:

The company that Retired the most Credits was Grabcar, a Singapore-based ride-sharing company operating in Southeast Asia, with approximately 230,000 units. The company has cumulatively Retired 1.24 million units from REDD projects in Cambodia and Katingan (ARR, REDD, WRC) in Indonesia.

- Target Projects: Investments in Nature-based Solutions and CDR are highlighted.
- Target Period: May 2025
- Note: For "クレジット量(Credits)" (Credit Volume) and "投資額(Group investment)" (Investment Amount), only publicly announced figures are recorded, so some fields may be blank. Also, in this table, "Beneficiary" refers to the investing company or the company purchasing Credits, and "Investment into" indicates whether the investment target is a project or a fund.

In May, there were five significant investments in Nature-based Solutions and CDR projects. For details on these, please refer to Section A-3: Detailed Explanation Section.

A-2: Project Pipeline Analysis

- Target Registries: VCS (Verra), GS (Gold Standard), CAR (Climate Action Reserve), ACR (American Carbon Registry), ART-TREES, Puro (Puro.earth), Isometric
- Target Projects: Nature-based Solutions and CDR Pipelines 
- Target Period: April-May 2025
- Note: Please be aware that there is a slight time lag for reflection in registries, so there is a possibility of changes in the number of projects or their status during the target period.
- Terminology: Annual ER refers to annual Emission Reduction / Sequestration volume (tCO₂e).

This section covers new Pipeline projects for Nature-based Solutions and CDR from last month, as well as updates to the Pipeline from two months ago, which were introduced in the previous newsletter.

Please note that the application date (Listing Date) in this database is either directly acquired from registries or estimated. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the comprehensiveness or accuracy of the data.

The May 2025 Pipeline includes 60 projects, and the April Pipeline has been updated since the last newsletter's publication and now also includes 60 projects.