On October 30, 2025, the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) approved two carbon offset project methodologies for sustainable agricultural land management:
These methodologies were reviewed and approved against the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), which means they are now officially recognized as the highest quality on the market. Both CAR and Verra were previously assessed and approved by the ICVCM at a programmatic level.
This methodology-level approval marks a turning point in the use of climate finance to scale regenerative agriculture. It ushers in a new era of integrity and investment that accelerates environmental impact.
So, what does this approval mean for the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and how does it move the needle on regenerative agriculture?
The short answer is that CCP approval is the leading, independent mark of quality in the VCM – the global “gold standard” for integrity and scientific rigor in carbon markets. These are the first regenerative agriculture methodologies to receive the prestigious CCP label.
This CCP approval changes things in a big way:
The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has been around for decades, but because it is voluntary by nature, there is no single governing authority. In the early years, many carbon credits were created independently and often without independent verification against rigorous standards of quality and integrity.
As a result, while there was some good work happening in certain areas and some funding flowing to very high-quality projects, there was also some less rigorous, or even downright superficial activity happening that drew criticism and held the market back. Put simply, it was hard for buyers to know what to trust.
The ICVCM was launched in 2019 to help offer more oversight and consistency.
The ICVCM is the leading governance body made up of leading carbon market experts focused on maintaining integrity standards across the voluntary carbon market through the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs).
To develop the CCPs, the ICVCM engaged an incredibly broad set of stakeholders to (1) ensure they were widely agreed-upon, and (2) could be used as the standard against which crediting programs and individual methodologies are evaluated.
Each methodology assessment process starts with the convening of a small group of deep experts called the Multi Stakeholder Working Group (MSWG); the MSWG reviewed and assessed a number of agriculture and forestry methodologies, providing concrete feedback and recommendations to the ICVCM. The ICVCM then began an extensive internal assessment of the methodologies, informed by the conclusions of the MSWG.
Due to the complex nature of these methodologies, the assessment process for the agricultural methodologies took quite a long time to ensure that they were thoroughly vetted.
Both CAR and Verra adopted several updates or clarifications to the methodologies to meet ICVCM criteria.
As a result, some projects already implementing versions of these methodologies may need to make updates to their project design and/or implementation in order to qualify for the CCP label.
Further, the ICVCM placed modest limitations on the scope of their approval for each methodology:
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CAR SEP v1.1 |
VCS VM0042 v2.2 |
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Indigo’s project under the CAR SEP v1.1, CAR1459, does meet all the requirements and will have a CCP label applied. And here’s why:
The market was still maturing when Indigo launched our Carbon by Indigo program in 2019. At that time, there were many agriculture-related methodologies developed under various crediting programs, but none struck the right balance of flexibility, specificity to agriculture, and level of scientific rigor needed to generate high-integrity soil carbon removals at scale that we wanted.
To help fill that gap, we partnered with TerraCarbon to author VCS VM0042 v1.0 and participated in the development of the Soil Enrichment Protocol v1.0 by CAR. Participating in the development of the guidelines informed the design for Indigo’s carbon project, CAR1459, which is now registered with the Reserve. This registration requires the project to meet the Reserve’s program-level standards, as well as the Soil Enrichment Protocol v1.1 (SEP). Each time a new batch of credits is issued under the Carbon by Indigo program, we must have the project independently verified against both the Reserve’s programmatic standards and the SEP itself, ensuring quality and integrity.
On top of this, there are also a number of external standards and quality criteria that seek to assess the quality of both programmatic standards and project methodologies. For example, both CAR and Verra have previously been approved or endorsed by the International Carbon Reduction and Offsetting Accreditation (ICROA), the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), and the ICVCM (at a program level).
The next step is for the registries to add the CCP label to any credits issued under these methodologies that also meet the additional requirements stipulated by the ICVCM.
For the SEP v1.1, there are two registered projects that have issued nearly 1 million credits, combined. The vast majority of these credits (more than 900,000) have been issued to CAR1459.
The ICVCM Core Carbon Principles set an incredibly high bar for scientific rigor and credit integrity. Carbon buyers are increasingly seeking out clear standards like the CCPs to separate the wheat from the chaff in the VCM.
Buyers can be more confident in CCP-labeled credits, allowing them to be more targeted and efficient with their due diligence activities. Some buyers have already begun adopting the CCPs as a quality filter to simplify their procurement strategy.
Approval for these sustainable agriculture methodologies opens new opportunities for these buyers to use their investments to support farmers’ prosperity in the US and around the world.
You can learn more about how Indigo supports farmers to generate revenue from the carbon market. Visit our CAR1459 resources page to go deeper and access our project documentation.
Are you ready to support farmers today? You can also purchase carbon credits directly from our website.