Monthly: VCM Updates (March)
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 the newsletter from Sustainacraft Inc. Starting this month, we will deliver the following content once a month as a **Monthly Update**.
- **Monthly Methodology Update**: Overview primarily of VCS Methodology revisions, etc.
- **Monthly VCM Update**: Overview of the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) and international regulations.
This newsletter corresponds to the second item, the Monthly VCM Update.
In conjunction with this, we recently launched two plans for this newsletter: a free plan and a paid plan. In the future, the Monthly Update content mentioned above, as well as some individual articles, will be included in the paid plan.
Furthermore, we will be launching a new web service for Voluntary Carbon Credits at the end of this month, and its plan will include a subscription to this newsletter. We have now started pre-registration, so if you are interested, please feel free to inquire here. Our website has also been renewed recently.
Monthly VCM Update
This month, we cover the following updates:
A. Voluntary Carbon Credit Market Trends
B. Trends in Major International Regulations
- EU Green Claims Law
- Core Carbon Principles
- Science Based Target for Land
- Deforestation Free Product Law
A. Voluntary Carbon Credit Market Trends (Verra)
The Voluntary Carbon Credit market expanded rapidly in 2021, but in 2022, it remained flat in terms of both Issuance and Retirement.
In February 2023, 14,151,988 units of Verra Voluntary Carbon Credits were newly Issued, and 15,805,041 units were Retired. These figures represent year-on-year growth of +5% and +32% respectively.
Limiting to the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) sector, 5,318,671 units were Issued, and 7,414,752 units were Retired. These show even higher growth rates, with +92% and +47% year-on-year respectively.
In 2022, the Issuance and Retirement volumes in the AFOLU sector particularly decreased, leading to a contraction of the overall Voluntary Carbon Credit market. However, the AFOLU sector has recovered in early 2023.
This is a list of Retired projects (AFOLU sector only) for the first two months of 2023. The top 20 projects account for 80% of total Retirements. By country, Indonesia is the largest (23%), followed by Peru (19%), Kenya (13%), Ethiopia (12%), and Brazil (8%).
The TOP 20 companies that Retired Carbon Credits from the Verra AFOLU sector are as follows. Looking at the past few years, Shell consistently Retires the largest annual volume of credits in February. As a result, Shell's Retirement volume accounts for over 30% of the total Retirements in February. Companies from the Oil Industry, Automotive Industry, Airline, Chemical, and Consumer sectors are conducting Retirements.
