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CERT Foundation
Our Standard

The rules that govern every CRU.

The CERT Standard is a single, integrated system: a binding Rulebook, sector methodologies, one objective additionality test, mandatory safeguards, and a pooled Buffer Pool. Every element is published and versioned.

Registry Rulebook

The Rulebook is the binding operating manual for the CERT registry. Every project, every VVB, every buyer and every CERT employee is bound by it. It is versioned, publicly consulted, and cannot be silently changed.

  • Listing & eligibility screen: completeness check within 10 working days.
  • Independent validation: performed by a CERT-accredited VVB, subject to independence and rotation limits.
  • Registration decision: within 30 days of a complete validated package. All decisions and reasons published.
  • Monitoring & verification: digital MRV supported; materiality thresholds published; verification to ISO 14064-3.
  • Issuance: within 30 days of a complete verified package; four-eyes approval; cryptographically chained audit log.
  • Retirement: once, and only once; public certificate naming beneficiary and purpose.
Amendment process
Draft → Standards Committee recommendation → Board approval (2/3 supermajority) → versioned release. No fast-track. No silent edits.

Methodologies

Every methodology follows the same conservative principles: transparent baselines, published benchmarks, mandatory sensitivity analysis, and a single financial additionality test. Version history and diffs are published for every release.

Current scope

  • Nature-based — improved forest management, afforestation & reforestation, blue carbon.
  • Renewable energy — grid-connected solar PV, onshore wind.
  • Engineered removals — direct air capture with permanent storage, biochar, enhanced rock weathering.

Additionality Approach

CERT accepts exactly one form of evidence for additionality: transparent financial analysis against published benchmarks. Narratives cannot be verified; numbers can.

  • Financial model: submitted using the CERT template, disclosing costs, revenues and returns — with and without carbon revenue.
  • Benchmark comparison: IRR/LCOE without carbon revenue is compared to the CERT-published sectoral benchmark for the country and technology.
  • Sensitivity analysis: mandatory ±10% variation on key inputs. Crossing the benchmark under sensitivity means the project is not additional.
No barrier stories
CERT will not accept qualitative barriers, market-first narratives, or common-practice arguments in place of the financial test.

Safeguards

No emission reduction is worth harm to communities, Indigenous Peoples or ecosystems. Safeguards are not optional.

  • Uncontested land and resource rights for every activity, evidenced by title or legally binding agreement.
  • Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) where Indigenous Peoples or Local Communities are affected — documented, iterative, and revocable.
  • Do-no-harm environmental and social risk screening.
  • Human rights due diligence aligned with the UN Guiding Principles.
  • Grievance access: every affected person can file a grievance, in their language, free of charge.
Sanctions for safeguard breaches
Breaches trigger immediate registry suspension, cancellation of unretired CRUs from affected vintages, and publication of the enforcement action.

Permanence & Buffer Pool

Two paths, both binding.

  • Nature-based projects contribute a risk-rated percentage of each issuance to a pooled, non-tradable Buffer Pool. Reversals are compensated from the pool within 60 days.
  • Engineered / technology-based projects carry a binding replacement obligation: reversed tonnes must be replaced within 12 months, enforced through sanctions.
  • Good-faith retirements stand. Buyers are not exposed to clawback. Remediation targets the responsible party.

The pooled buffer is sized to withstand a 1-in-100-year catastrophic reversal event without breaching drawdown limits.