Bryan Foster: Assessing Audit Impact and Thoroughness of VCS Forest Carbon Offset Projects

Voluntary markets transacted over $66 million USD of forest carbon offsets internationally in 2016 and over 99% of those offset projects were audited to a standard, primarily the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). This talk will present key characteristics of the 70 validated and verified forest carbon projects employing the VCS version 3.0 in use from late 2011 through present. This talk will also discuss two separate aspects of the audit process-impact and thoroughness-to assess the effectiveness of the credibility-building audit process, which can consume up to one-third of offset revenue. We found that VCS needs to improve the effectiveness of the auditing process for avoided deforestation projects in particular.