CARBON CREDIT REGISTER
What are carbon credit registries?
Carbon credit registries allow for the inventory, tracking and reporting of all carbon credits linked to a project validated by a program.
In the case of Will Solutions, all the carbon credits are linked to the Sustainable Communities cluster projects, which are the result of GHG reduction micro-projects that have been qualified, quantified and verified under the Quebec community, and soon under the Ontario community (Canada). The Sustainable Communities are all framed upstream by the VM0018 methodology, which has been validated since 2012 by Verra.
The Quebec Sustainable Community, our pilot project, was developed and validated in July 2013 under the VCS program (identification number: 929).
The Ontario Sustainable Community, our second cluster project, is currently also being validated by Verra (ID number: 3004)
Will Solutions' internal registry
Our internal registry
Since 2014, WILL has been operating and compiling its own internal registry since the first GHG reduction audit of its Sustainable Community project. We decided to have an internal registry for several reasons:
- To reconcile our internal information with that recorded in the VERRA registry.
- To ensure the distribution, for each member of the Sustainable Community, of verified carbon credits according to their geolocation, their micro-projects and by vintage for the years 2010 to 2029.
- Create and maintain the carbon asset portfolio (CAP) since the summer of 2019, for each member of the Sustainable Community, which will allow an optimal, fair and equitable distribution of revenues from the sale of its carbon credits in proportion to the verified efforts of each member.
- Our internal registry, managed in parallel with VERRA’s, optimizes the reconciliation of each data, minimizing the risk of errors inherent in any unique system.
What is the difference between a VCU (Verra) or a WCU (WILL) serialized carbon credit?
How can I access Will Solutions' carbon project documentation (Sustainable Communities)?
The VERRA external registry
The origin of Verra's registry
The use of this registry allows the registration of each carbon credit, individualized by serialization, ensures the uniqueness (integrity) of the use of each ton of GHG reduction over a calendar year and which has been qualified under Sustainable Community, then quantified, verified (by a third party) and converted into carbon credit. Maintaining a registry, with all relevant supporting documentation, addresses transparency and double-counting issues. These come in several variations such as those mentioned in our May 2019 column[1].
Applying a certified carbon credit registry under the VCS program is an integral part of its program[2]. As a result of international public consultations held, in the summer of 2018 and 2019, VERRA[3], the organization that manages the VCS program, updated the program, in September 2019, as version 4.0. This version 4.0 of the VCS program allows a transfer of external registers, previously provided by companies (APX[4] or IHS Markit[5]) to a centralized register operated directly by VERRA (operational since April 2020).
Since 2013, when the Sustainable Community project was validated under the VCS program, WILL has been using an external registry to ensure the uniqueness of its carbon credits by serializing them. This external registry, for the entire 2013-2020 period[6], was managed by the firm APX accredited by the VCS program.
Learn more about our carbon registry
The WILL register includes the results of new carbon credits verified and issued following the 4th and 5th verification, which covers the calendar years 2017 to 2019. The results of the 6th verification, which have been completed, are awaiting validation by VERRA.
WILL’s internal registry reconciles all supporting documentation as well as GHG reduction quantities that have been qualified under Sustainable Community, quantified and verified by a VCS-recognized third party, and entered into the VERRA registry as of April 9, 2020[7]. The WILL registry distinguishes, still in respect of the uniqueness of each carbon credit, the serialization of carbon credits registered under VERRA from the serialization of carbon credits registered under WILL.
This separate registry, always with a view to social and environmental equity, makes it possible to link and validate early GHG reduction projects, qualified, quantified and verified over the same verification cohorts, up to a maximum of five years prior to the current MRV year. Therefore, we support avant-garde projects and organizations pioneering change with a unique green financing solution!
Since the fall of 2017, the specific serialization of verified carbon credits under the ‘WCU‘ designation reinforces the application of the principles of transparency and complementarity of regulated carbon emissions pricing with the role and use of carbon credits in voluntary markets (VCMs).
In this regard, in June 2021, we expressed the following recommendation to Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs). In line with the Carbon Core Principle (CCP), we support the creation of a digital interconnection mechanism (with Block Chain technologies or their equivalent) in order to link all registries, both those held by recognized voluntary programs and those of governments, as well as those of carbon project owners and buyers of carbon credits.
To this end, Will has submitted a brief on the tokenization of verified carbon credits (in french) in the fall of 2022. This would ensure full transparency and address issues of double counting of any verified carbon credits.
Thus, as of June 2021, WILL has implemented a second part of its specific internal registry that allows each authorized corporate buyer of Sustainable Community to track the record of each and every carbon credit sale transaction serialized under the WCU name. This registry is designed with the ability to digitally interconnect with all previously mentioned registries.
Access the Will serialized carbon credit sales transaction registry (WCU):
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