The Action Agenda

Click here to review our Draft Action Agenda. This draft is preliminary and will be refined with member feedback before public release.

The VCM+ Action Agenda is a market-organizing tool that gives members, partners, and the broader market a shared map of the priority work ahead—one that the ecosystem can use to shape their own strategies, find aligned efforts to join, and identify where their contributions are most needed. By making priorities legible across the system, the Action Agenda is designed to reduce duplication, encourage collaboration, streamline communications about market reform, accelerate collective impact, and clarify priorities for funders looking to deploy catalytic capital.

The Action Agenda was developed through a structured consultation with VCM+ Collaborative
members—scientists, standard-setters, buyers, community leaders, investors, developers, philanthropies,
NGOs, and others working across the market. Members were asked to identify the issues they see as
most important for the market to address to achieve integrity and scale. Those inputs were synthesized
against a clear set of criteria.

The Collaborative prioritized issues that:

materially constrain confidence, interoperability, investment, or scale if left unresolved;
require coordination across market stakeholders to solve; and
lend themselves to concrete solutions that can be developed, tested, and embedded in existing institutions.

The result is a focused set of action items with defined outcomes organized under the Collaborative’s five
pillars. The action items are at different stages of development. Some are already well under way,
advanced by established groups with strong momentum and clear ownership. Others are in progress but
fragmented, where greater coordination across parallel efforts could accelerate impact. And some
represent clear gaps—important work that is not yet being addressed and where new effort is needed to
move forward.

How the Action Agenda Will Be Used

The Action Agenda informs the VCM+ Collaborative’s annual work plan, though the Collaborative will not lead every action item. Where strong work is already under way, the Collaborative will amplify, connect, and support the groups already leading. Where there are clear gaps and a need for coordination, the
Collaborative will establish time-bound, expert-led sprints to develop solutions, paired with piloting and policy engagement to ensure those solutions land in durable market infrastructure.

Every action item is framed as a time-bound deliverable with a clearly defined outcome that can be evaluated as complete or incomplete within a finite window. Each is intended to feed into the policies, institutional processes, and standards that govern the market—standard-setting bodies, regulatory frameworks, registries, and accounting and assurance systems.

The Action Agenda itself intentionally stops short of policy implementation. Implementation is the responsibility of the institutions that own those policies, standards, and processes, and the Action Agenda is designed to give them what they need to act. Alongside the Action Agenda, the Collaborative is
developing a separate policy engagement strategy that sets out how it will work with these institutions to support uptake of Action Agenda outputs into formal rules, guidance, and systems.

The Action Agenda was publicly released at London Climate Action Week 2026 and will be updated biannually to reflect progress, new learning, and emerging market needs. As actions are completed, priorities shift, and the market evolves, the Action Agenda will evolve —anchoring a shared, public conversation about what high-integrity carbon markets require and how the system can deliver for
climate, communities, and nature.

Action Agenda Priorities

1. High Integrity Science

The VCM+ is grounded in rigorous scientific standards that ensure carbon credits effectively reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions. It advances research, data systems, and methodologies that continuously improve market integrity and deepen understanding and implementations of carbon market related activities that support broader environmental and social goals.

1.1. Enhance Scientific Consistency Across Crediting Approaches
Expand and support research programs that fill key gaps in carbon market science, holding back higher integrity methodology development and alignment

1.2. Modernize Digital Measurement, Reporting & Verification (dMRV)
Develop clear, cross-standard rules for when and how digital tools (remote sensing, AI analytics, IoT monitoring) can be used in carbon market measurement and verification Create predictable, scheduled pathways for integrating new technology and science into existing standards — limiting ad hoc changes

1.3. Protect and Share Critical Market Data
Evaluate coordinated models to maintain open-source and public-interest data tools that support broad participation across stakeholders Develop a strategy to identify and safeguard datasets at risk of being lost due to market consolidation or shifts in government data availability

2. Robust Oversight

The VCM+ is governed by a strong legal and institutional framework and supported by modern, interoperable market infrastructure aligned with financial market principles. It enables the large-scale issuance of high-integrity carbon credits while ensuring Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities receive tangible benefits and are protected by robust social and environmental safeguards.

2.1. Establish Financial Infrastructure for Carbon Markets
Develop a shared legal definition of what a carbon credit is and what rights it confers Create clear guidance for how carbon credits are treated in financial accounting and on corporate balance sheets Identify and address assurance gaps limiting delivery of financial market-grade “reasonable assurance” levels for carbon credits Outline best-practice approaches for tax treatment of carbon credits across jurisdictions Develop a standardized approach to enable cross-registry transfer and interoperability of carbon credits Standardize how credits are tracked and nested as they move through the value chain Clarify legal structures needed to support cross-border credit transfers and retirements Align on standardized project-level risk assessment methods and templates

2.2. Standardize market data
Improve market data standardization to support interoperability across core data fields and definitions in registries and other platforms

2.3. Codify Legal Protections for Buyers
Develop clear regulatory guidance on green claims that aligns with recognized climate accounting and disclosure standards to reduce litigation risk associated with credit purchases, reward good faith action, and encourage consistency in disclosure regimes.

2.4. Standardize Permanence Risk Management
Develop a shared framework for classifying permanence risk across credit types,
identifying key risk drivers and appropriate risk management strategies
Establish a consistent, quantitative rating system for permanence risk that buyers,
insurers, and issuers can use as a common reference

2.5. Harmonize Social & Environmental Safeguards
Define a common baseline set of social and environmental requirements applicable across carbon markets, grounded in international norms (e.g., consent, benefit sharing, biodiversity, grievance mechanisms) Create a standardized process and evidence framework so safeguards can be consistently implemented, tracked, and verified across projects

2.6. Establish Governance Frameworks for Responsible AI in Carbon Markets
Develop a strategic assessment of where AI tools can most meaningfully strengthen core carbon market functions — including but not limited to measurement, verification, issuance, safeguards, and international transfers — and where risks of misapplication are greatest Establish shared principles and minimum governance standards for the responsible deployment of AI in carbon markets, including expectations around data sovereignty, algorithmic transparency, explainability of AI-generated outcomes, and safeguards
against misuse Build market-wide awareness and capacity around responsible AI integration, ensuring that digital innovation strengthens rather than undermines market integrity and community protections

2.7. Extend Oversight Across Environmental Attribute Markets
Develop a common taxonomy that maps carbon credits alongside other environmental attribute certificates (EAC) and identifies where oversight strategies and infrastructure developed for carbon markets can inform and strengthen adjacent EAC markets

3. Trusted Communications

The VCM+ fosters a culture of transparency, accountability, and clarity in all market interactions. It restores confidence in high-integrity, market-based climate solutions through consistent, credible, and accessible communications that empower informed stakeholder engagement.

3.1. Improve Information Quality and Public Understanding
Build a coordinated rapid-response mechanism to provide timely, evidence-based responses to public scrutiny or misinformation about carbon markets
Launch a targeted campaign to educate key stakeholders on the reforms underway

3.2. Diversify and Strengthen the Voices Shaping Carbon Market Discourse
Broaden the range of credible voices participating in global carbon market discourse through the launch of the VCM+ Fellows Program, which will recruit and support an annual cohort of practitioners, policymakers, and community leaders with media training, communications assistance, and speaking opportunities

4. Targeted Finance

The VCM+ mobilizes scaled, accessible capital through innovative carbon finance instruments that unlock high-impact mitigation projects. It equitably channels funding to local and frontline communities as key partners in climate action, advancing nationally and locally determined priorities, climate resilience and
sustainable development.

4.1. Map Project Lifecycle Financial Gaps
Map the key financing gaps that carbon projects face at each stage of development — from design through credit issuance — to identify where financing gaps and barriers are most acute across different project types and geographies

4.2. Standardize Buyer Commitment Structures
Develop replicable reference models for offtake agreements, advance market commitments, and forward purchases that can be used across project types and regions to provide earlier revenue certainty and reduce reliance on bespoke negotiations

4.3. Integrate Carbon Revenue into Project Finance
Develop clear frameworks on how carbon credit revenues can be modeled and structured within debt and blended-finance instruments, helping investors and development finance institutions treat carbon income as a bankable cash flow
Pilot the integration of carbon revenue into debt and blended-finance instruments through partnerships with emerging funds and financial institutions, generating replicable market precedent

5. Scaled Demand

The VCM+ supports climate-ambitious companies and governments to meet climate goals by credibly purchasing and retiring high-integrity carbon credits at scale. It supports claim integrity and transparent use, driving sustained demand for high integrity markets aligned with global climate objectives.

5.1. Improve Demand Clarity and Predictability
Map and align the pathways through which carbon credits can credibly be used across voluntary standards, integrity frameworks, and policy systems
Develop shared principles to guide buyers in building balanced credit portfolios across different credit types and risk profiles

5.2. Enable International Credit Use Under Article 6 and CORSIA
Align stakeholders on practical, scalable models for how host-country authorizations under Article 6 should be structured and how credits can be recognized and used within CORSIA and other compliance and voluntary frameworks
Develop and pilot “lighthouse” policy frameworks in specific countries and project types to demonstrate effective authorization, eligibility, and use of credits across international and aviation market mechanisms
Expand capacity-building support for host-country governments to participate effectively in international carbon markets, including alignment with requirements under Article 6 and CORSIA
Facilitate opportunities for host countries to publicly signal commitments to developing credit issuance rules that authorize and report credits for international use, building
market confidence and momentum in international credit supply