How does the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) say a project baseline must be chosen, including rebound effects and the temptation to inflate it?

The ICVCM framework counts these as the approaches that make a baseline conservative: consider best available technology or history, weigh uncertainty between candidate baselines, include enforced laws, account for rebound effects and perverse incentives to inflate baseline emissions. The baseline is also reviewed as circumstances change.

What table 10.3 lists

1. Select the baseline scenario conservatively, by considering different scenarios including the best available technology (BAT) or practice in the country or region, or statistically relevant historical information.
2. Consider uncertainties in choosing between different candidate baseline scenarios.
3. Consider existing government policies and legal requirements, as long as their enforcement is widespread. For high-income countries, policies and legal requirements are considered enforced.
4. Account for rebound effects, meaning an increase in product use or service level as a result of the activity, for example when introducing energy-efficient appliances.
5. Base the overall degree of conservativeness of baseline emissions on the level of overall uncertainty.
6. Take into account any potential perverse incentives for the project owner to inflate quantified baseline emissions, or depress baseline removals.
7. Update or review the baseline at a frequency that reflects changing circumstances, such as changes in policy or law.

What a perverse incentive looks like (our reading)

A project is paid for the gap between baseline and actual use. A plant that ran its old equipment unusually hard or badly in the baseline year makes the gap look bigger. Averaging several years of records is one way to take that out.

What the framework may add later

The framework says the ICVCM will consider whether to require that updating the baseline increases its ambition over time. It is not a current requirement.

A pump drive that makes the pump run longer

• Before: 22 kW for 4,000 hours = 88,000 kWh. After: 16 kW for 4,600 hours = 73,600 kWh.
• Saving at the service level that would have happened anyway: (22 minus 16) x 4,000 = 24,000 kWh
• Extra use caused by the project: 600 hours x 16 kW = 9,600 kWh
• Actual fall in the plant's consumption: 24,000 minus 9,600 = 14,400 kWh (check: 88,000 minus 73,600 = 14,400)
• At 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh (FY 2025-26 grid factor): 24,000 kWh = 16,200 kg and 14,400 kWh = 9,720 kg

Figures are an example. The framework lists accounting for rebound effects among the approaches but does not set how; each methodology decides how much of the 24,000 or 14,400 kWh is credited.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, which gives a project its own fuel and power history. Credits are issued by the program's registry and checked by an independent verifier, not by Senseible's own check. Several years of monthly electricity records make a baseline year easier to test against the others.

• Baseline and additionality tool
• Years of data for a carbon project baseline
• Proving additionality for an efficiency project
• Free calculators

Sources: Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework, Section 4, January 2024, version 1.1 (criterion 10.3 and table 10.9), Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, Core Carbon Principles Definitions, Section 5, January 2024, version 1.1

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Based on Assessment Framework version 1.1 (January 2024). The Integrity Council's August 2026 rule architecture says Interpretations and Technical Notices may affect how criteria are assessed, so check icvcm.org for any in effect before you rely on a detail.