VCM+ Coalition Launches Vision for the Verified Carbon Market
- Sep 21, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 22
NEW YORK, September 22, 2025 – Today, leading academic institutions, private sector innovators, and non-profit organizations announced the VCM+ Coalition, a collective effort to accelerate an equitable, transparent, and high-integrity verified carbon market (VCM+).
Through high-integrity credits, the VCM+ holds significant potential to mobilize climate finance at scale but to date, this potential has been underrealized.
The VCM+ Coalition is addressing these challenges head on, and setting a course for a next-generation verified carbon market that will reduce or remove 5 billion cumulative tons of CO₂e by 2035 and drive hundreds of billions of dollars to frontline communities, climate solutions, and nature. The growing VCM+ Coalition has united over 50 global organizations across sectors to coordinate reforms and mobilize the funding necessary to expand proven solutions, scale promising innovation, and address critical gaps.
The VCM+ Coalition’s work is guided by a shared vision for the future of carbon markets, anchored in five pillars:
High-Integrity Science: The VCM+ is grounded in rigorous scientific standards that ensure carbon credits effectively reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions.
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.
Trusted Communications: The VCM+ fosters a culture of transparency, accountability, and clarity in all market interactions.
Targeted Finance: The VCM+ mobilizes scaled, accessible capital through innovative carbon finance instruments that unlock high-impact mitigation projects.
Scaled Demand: The VCM+ enables climate-ambitious companies and governments to meet climate goals by credibly purchasing and retiring high-integrity carbon credits at scale.
“The VCM+ represents the next chapter of the carbon market, from voluntary to verified, with oversight, science, and integrity at its core,” said Alexia Kelly, Managing Director of the Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative at the High Tide Foundation. “With clear rules, trust, and equity, this market can scale as a powerful tool to fight climate change.”
Launched at Climate Week New York, the VCM+ Coalition will advance this next phase of market transformation and scaled climate investment.
About The VCM+ Coalition: The VCM+ Coalition is a global initiative to build the next-generation verified carbon market, unifying and accelerating action across the carbon market ecosystem. It aims to deliver 5 billion cumulative tons of CO₂e reduced or removed between 2026 and 2035 and mobilize an additional $100 billion in climate finance, across voluntary and compliance systems while restoring trust, improving outcomes for communities and nature, and building a high-integrity, equitable, and scalable market. Learn more at vcmcoalition.org.
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