The Global Carbon Council (GCC) has received more than 150 GHG emission reduction projects from countries around the world. Amid high submissions of GCC projects, GCC organized a virtual workshop for GCC verifiers on Monday, February 7. Titled ‘Calibration Workshop for GCC Verifiers’, the objective behind the workshop was to ensure the calibration of GCC verifiers and experience sharing in verification of projects and GHG emission reductions with respect to GCC program’s requirement. GCC verifiers are third-party entities that are accredited, either by UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or national accreditation bodies in respective countries as per ISO 14064, and approved by GCC program to provide verification services for projects intending to be registered with GCC Program and emission reductions associated with such projects. The workshop was attended by approximately 60 participants including the representatives of the approved GCC Verifiers and applicant entities, GCC Operations Team and IHS Markit Team. IHS Markit is the carbon registry provider for GCC Program.
In the beginning of the workshop Mr. Kishor Rajhansa, Chief Operations Officer, and Mr. Amit Thusu, Director-Climate Action of GCC Program welcomed the participants and provided them with the objectives of the calibration workshop.
Divided into four technical sessions by GCC and IHS Markit teams, the workshop started with a general overview of the GCC program, after which the experts from GCC’s operations team elucidated on the process for registration, issuance and approval as GCC verifier. Stakeholders attending the workshop were also guided on the recent regulatory updates.
The second part of the three-hour virtual training delved into the technicalities of verifying GCC labels as claimed by the projects. GHG credits with GCC labels add value to the quality of credits. Environmental No-net-harm Label (E+) and Social No-net-harm Label (S+) are labels obtained by projects that apply GCC Environment and Social Safeguards Standard to demonstrate that project activities result in no net harm to the environment and society. In the same vein, projects’ contribution to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals can further add value in the form of various SDG+ labels offered by GCC.
The third session of the workshop summarized recurring issues raised during completeness checks. It focused on experience sharing and providing details to GCC verifiers on many observations identified in the assessment of submitted projects and respective documents. By providing examples from past submissions, the session highlighted common issues and discussed approaches on how to identify them. The session further discussed ‘Project and Emission Reduction Verifications and Pitfalls’ to share experiences and calibrate understanding with GCC verifiers about the best practices in verifying achieved emission reductions and voluntary certification labels.
Concluding the workshop with the fourth and final session, GCC’s IT team took the attendees through the GCC projects portal to guide them on how to successfully register accounts to access and review projects and required associated documents, and to submit Verification and Certification Reports online via the portal. The final part of the workshop was led by representatives of IHS Markit, who provided live demonstration of the ACR issuance interface on the IHS Market and provided information on how the GCC Verifiers can review request for issuance of projects and submit Verification and Certification Reports online. To prevent double counting and double issuance while ensuring complete transparency, GCC program has connected its carbon registry with the IHS Markit meta-registry, that connects environmental markets and registry systems around the world by linking many voluntary GHG programs. Developed by IHS Markit, the global carbon credit registry collates, displays, issues and transfers carbon credits (Approved Carbon Credits or ACCs) for a range of GHG reduction projects.
In the future, GCC Program will organize such calibration workshops for verifiers and project owners of GHG emission reduction projects on regular intervals.
