Carbon Market Policy & Standards
The rules decide whether forests get financed. We track the policy and standards shaping compliance and voluntary carbon markets for nature-based solutions: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, SBTi's corporate net-zero standards, and the ICVCM's integrity bar, with plain-English explainers and belian's commentary as the frameworks move.
Policy explainers
Plain-English guides to the rules that decide whether forests get financed.
Article 6
Article 6 is the international carbon market framework of the Paris Agreement, the mechanism that should, in theory, make forests financeable at scale. In practice, the rules governing removal activities have made this harder, not easier.
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SBTi
SBTi sets the bar for corporate climate ambition: which emissions companies must cut, when, and by how much, and what role carbon credits, land use, and nature play in a credible net-zero claim. FLAG shapes demand from land-intensive companies; the Corporate Net-Zero Standard shapes the broader credit market.
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ICVCM
The ICVCM sets the global threshold standard for quality in the voluntary carbon market. Its Core Carbon Principles and CCP label determine which credits are credible, which methodologies are sound, and where the market needs to go further: REDD+, reforestation, permanence, leakage, and buffer pools.
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TNFD & SBTN
How corporate nature reporting, target-setting and measurement now fit together after the aligned releases of 13 October 2026, and what that means for forests.
Read morePolicy in practice: from the blog
Where the belian.earth team writes on the questions these pages raise. The full feed lives on News.
Read our take
Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Forest?
by Chloé Naomi Swickard
Permanence has been a sticking point for Nature-Based Solutions since the Kyoto debates. The ICVCM Permanence Trust may finally unlock long-term durability. Even then, the deeper question of how nature gets financed will remain.
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Read our take
VM0047's brave call is your ARR project's defining moment
by belian.earth
VM0047 locks the developer's matched reference areas at validation and keeps them fixed for the full crediting period. That single choice defines your ARR project's baseline for decades.
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Read our take
Why Forest Restoration Projects Need Robust Counterfactual Baselines
by Christopher D. Philipson
Every forest carbon project depends on a counterfactual baseline to demonstrate its impact. Whether avoiding deforestation or restoring degraded land, the underlying question is the same: what would have happened without the intervention?
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Working through these frameworks?
We work with project developers, standards bodies, and investors on the technical foundations these rules depend on: baselines, permanence, and market integrity.
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