Can I earn carbon credits today for emissions my project will avoid over the next ten years?

Sometimes, under Verra's rules. If a one-time action immediately and permanently stops future emissions at the source, credits can be issued only if the methodology your project uses allows this model, and only after the action has happened and been verified. They cover only emissions avoided over ten years, and deforestation and degradation (REDD) projects do not qualify.

The usual rule first

Verra, a body that runs a carbon credit programme, issues Verified Carbon Units (VCUs), its credits, for reductions and removals that have been verified under its rules. In the usual case that means credits arrive as reductions happen and are checked, year after year.

The exception: credit now for emissions that never happen

Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), version 5.0, allows immediate crediting of future avoided emissions under two conditions, which are addressed at the level of the applied methodology. So credits can be issued only if the methodology your project uses allows this model.

Condition one

• The project immediately avoids future emissions as a result of an upfront intervention that permanently precludes further emissions from the source.
• Credits are issued only after the intervention has occurred and the reductions have been verified.
• Verra's examples: destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) recovered from refrigeration equipment, so they can never leak out, and composting projects that divert organic waste from landfill sites, which immediately precludes the future methane emissions.
• Projects that reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) do not qualify, because future emissions are not permanently precluded.

Condition two

• The physical processes that would create the emissions without the project are well understood, stable and quantifiable.
• Any models and default factors meet Verra's methodology requirements.

The ten-year limit

Credits may only be issued for emissions avoided over a ten-year period, even if the emissions would have gone on longer. Verra's example: a composting project can be credited, for a specific amount of composted waste, for the emissions that would have occurred at the landfill over ten years. Anything after that is not eligible. For that amount of waste the ten-year rule applies, and the usual rules on the project's duration and crediting period still apply.

Credits issued before the cuts happen also raise a separate integrity question under the Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label. Our page on forward-issued credits and the CCP label covers it. We do not say here whether these units qualify.

Example: how the ten years work for one batch of waste

• Batch composted in year 1: counted for landfill emissions in years 1 to 10 only (our reading: the window starts when the waste is composted; Verra's text does not say)
• Landfill emissions the batch would have caused from year 11 on: not eligible
• The next batch composted in year 2 is a separate amount of waste, with its own ten-year window

Example timeline only. The amount of credit comes from the methodology your project uses.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records. A waste or refrigerant project needs records of waste weights or gas recovered, which are outside what Senseible reads. Senseible is not a registry, and credits come from Verra.

• Composting emissions tool for India's carbon credit scheme
• What additionality means in carbon credits
• How long until carbon credits are issued
• Forward-issued credits and the CCP label
• Carbon credits for small businesses

Sources: Verra, VCS Standard v5.0 (16 December 2025): section 2.3 Timing of Crediting, footnotes 8 and 9

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Rules are from Verra's VCS Standard v5.0, section 2.3. Ozone-depleting-substance projects have their own rule in section 2.3.4, and the refrigerant example above is one such case; that rule is not covered in full here. Check the methodology your project uses.