# What must a carbon crediting program define about how it quantifies credits under the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) rules?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/ccp-seven-quantification-rules-for-credits

The ICVCM framework says a program shall define a credit as one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, disclose its global warming potential values, set crediting period lengths and renewal steps, assess combined uncertainty, ensure conservative methods, and put existing government policies into the baseline.

## The seven requirements in table 5.2

1. Clearly define a carbon credit as one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removals.
2. Disclose the Global Warming Potential (GWP) values used to calculate the CO2 equivalence.
3. Define the length of crediting periods, including the total length of combined crediting periods.
4. Provide guidance on renewal of crediting periods. Any renewal shall include a reassessment of the baseline scenario, including whether the conditions and barriers at the start still prevail, and an update of the parameters used.
5. Assess the overall uncertainty of the reductions or removals for an activity type and/or require the project owner to assess it under an approved methodology. All causes of uncertainty are considered, including assumptions, estimation equations or models, parameters and measurements, and the overall figure is the combined uncertainty from individual causes.
6. Have a systematic approach to ensuring the conservativeness of the methodologies it approves.
7. Require in its documents that existing government policies and legal requirements that lower emissions, for example feed-in tariffs, minimum product efficiency standards, air quality requirements or carbon taxes, are included when setting baseline emissions. The program may consider the level of enforcement and any grace periods.

## On the GWP values

The framework says the ICVCM will, in a later version, require programs to align with the agreed values used internationally, for example 100-year GWP values from the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report, or other values the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopt for national greenhouse gas inventories and for accounting for nationally determined contributions. That is a stated plan. For now the requirement is to disclose the values used.

## Why a buyer cares

Our reading: two programs can issue a tonne for the same activity and differ because of the GWP values, the baseline policies they include or the uncertainty they allow for. Ask which GWP values the program discloses and whether your own report uses the same set, so the tonnes you add up are comparable.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, using the factor for the fuel and year. It does not set a program's global warming potential values and does not issue credits.

- [Verra GWP values: methane 28 and nitrous oxide 265](https://senseible.earth/answers/verra-gwp-values-ar5-methane-28-nitrous-oxide-265)
- [Length of a Carbon Credit Trading Scheme offset crediting period](https://senseible.earth/answers/ccts-offset-crediting-period-length)
- [Free calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)
- [Carbon credits for Indian businesses](https://senseible.earth/carbon-credits)

Sources: [Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework, Section 4, January 2024, version 1.1 (criterion 5.2 and table 5.4)](https://icvcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CCP-Section-4-V1.1-FINAL-15May24.pdf)

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.