Interview: Dr Anne Marie Warris, LRQA, author of the Voluntary Carbon Standard

The Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) was launched late last year by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Climate Group, and International Emissions Trading Association as a definitive means of proving the additionality of voluntary carbon projects. It has been heralded as the means to tackle the growing mistrust in voluntary carbon offsets.

Dr Anne-Marie Warris from Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), leading supplier of international standards certification, took over the job of writing up the standard and oversaw the consultation period. In an interview with ClimateChangecorp.com, Dr Warris discusses the scope of the VCS and its uses in the carbon markets.

First things first

For Warris, the priority of establishing the standard was to “generate credibility in the market”. This ranges from making sure double-counting of credits won’t happen by using carbon credit registries, to ensuring the sustainability of offsetting projects.

“People confuse the robustness of the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with the bureaucracy behind it,” Warris says. Although based on the CDM, the VCS will do away with much of its characteristic red tape. This includes the initial registration process of the CDM, which could take weeks, as well as many of the costs and delays in receiving the Carbon Emissions Reduction credits. The VCS process will also allow projects to produce backdated carbon credits, which the CDM currently does not allow.

The VCS has received criticism from environmental NGOs such as WWF, who are concerned that, like the CDM, its ethical standards are not clear enough. WWF has already produced a additional gold standard for CDM projects to ensure enviornmental and social standards are upheld. Warris’s response is to maintain that “The whole process will happen in the public domain so there will be full transparency,”.

Uses

Dr Warris sees the VCS taking off around the globe. In Asia, for example, where a number of projects are awaiting CDM accreditation. The demand for VCS carbon credits is also expected to grow. Backers of the standard expect companies to use the VCS as a benchmark for their offsets.

Warris could not comment on speculation that the Chicago Climate Exchange would adopt the VCS as a benchmark for its offset credits. The Californian Climate Action Registry, a leading US greenhouse gas registry, helped to develop the standard, however, which could lead to it to gaining widespread acceptance in the US.

The VCS has great potential to encourage innovation of new projects says Warris – such as smaller emissions reduction projects in Africa that have been unable to afford CDM certification. Project developers, such as small groups and co-operatives, are able to bundle projects and commission a CDM-accredited auditor to develop the project group, according to VCS requirements.

Future concerns

So what are the limits for the VCS? Warris is less worried about diluting effect of competing voluntary carbon standards. Her main concern is that a weak outcome from the international climate change conferences in Poland in December 2008 and Copenhagen in 2009 would kill the voluntary markets. “If there are no post-2012 emissions caps set, then why should you trade carbon?” Warris says.

The voluntary scheme is driven by companies and individuals offsetting what emissions they cannot reduce, she explains. If you remove the principle driver of the carbon markets on the international scale, she warns, then voluntary markets stand to lose vital momentum.