First sustainable agriculture carbon credit methodologies approved by ICVCM

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has approved the first two sustainable agriculture methodologies to issue carbon credits under its Core Carbon Principles label.

The sustainable agriculture carbon credit category covers improved agricultural practices aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) removals. These practices, including reduced tillage and improved residue management, crop rotation, improved grazing activities, optimised fertiliser use, and improved water/irrigation management, could now be financed partly through the carbon market, improving the business case for farmers.

Climate Action Reserve and Verra methodologies awarded CCP label

The two methodologies that will be able to use ICVCM’s high-integrity label are the Climate Action Reserve’s CAR – U.S. Soil Enrichment Protocol, v1.1 and Verr’s VM0042 Improved Agricultural Land Management, v2.2.

Both need to meet certain conditions to receive the CCP label: projects using CAR’s methodology needs to have a Project Implementation Agreement (PIA) with a minimum 40-year permanence commitment in place, and exclude rotational and/or intensive grazing practices; and those using Verra’s methodology must measure soil organic carbon using any measurement techniques allowed in the methodology except for Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) – which has not yet been assessed by ICVCM.

Each practice varies in its impact on emissions reduction and/or carbon sequestration, and some methodologies may even allow crediting for multiple practices.

More than one million credits expected to be issued annually

Approximately 1 million credits have been issued to date under CAR U.S. Soil Enrichment Protocol, and the two projects currently registered under the methodology are expected to issue over 1 million credits annually.

Verra’s VM0042 v2.2 is a new version of the methodology, so no projects have yet been registered or carbon credits issued. 

Annette Nazareth, Chair of ICVCM, said: “We are pleased to welcome a new category of methodologies to the growing range of carbon crediting approaches that are now aligned with the Core Carbon Principles. Projects operating under many of the methodologies that were CCP-Approved this year are now preparing to issue large volumes of credits in 2026 and we look forward to seeing the impact of this new generation of high integrity credits.”