Voluntary Nature and Carbon Markets: Domestic Scheme Endorsement Criteria

The integrity principles apply to scheme operators and all the scheme activities leading to the creation of nature and/or carbon credits. They enable participants in the voluntary markets to have confidence in the quality and integrity of the projects and project outcomes. 

A scheme can achieve government endorsement only if it has clear guidance, tools and procedures to ensure that projects registered under the scheme can provide evidence that they are operating in conformance with the integrity principles.  

The integrity principles are outlined below, including examples of how a scheme can demonstrate its application of the principles.

3.1    Additional 

Integrity principle: Additional

Credits (including other comparable instruments such as insetting) deliver positive environmental outcomes that are due to a specific activity and would not have occurred in the absence of the credit. For example, the activity is not required by regulation, or other policy measures.

In some circumstances credits could apply to maintenance activity.

Schemes should have procedures in place that demonstrate that the project activity is not an activity required by regulation or an activity that represents business-as-usual management.

For example, in a biodiversity context ‘Additional’ should not be considered as limited to restoring or extending ecosystems, but also the active maintenance, protection and enhancement of existing natural ecosystem conditions (eg, pest control and weed management of an existing ecosystem, where that activity will prevent biodiversity loss).

3.2    Durable and permanent

Integrity principle: Durable and permanent 

Activities recognised through credits contribute to long-lasting or permanent outcomes. Voluntary activity demonstrates permanence and states how a project will be managed if, for unforeseen circumstances, the voluntary activity is reversed. This will differ depending on the activity being claimed.

Schemes should have project requirements that demonstrate that credits created by the scheme will represent long-lasting or permanent project outcomes⁹. 

The following provisions for managing permanence could be considered:

• what aspects of the project or methodology make permanence more or less likely (ie, whether permanence is technically feasible)
• what legal instruments or other mechanism may be required to maintain the project and ensure durability eg, QEII covenants, Ngā Whenua Rāhui kawenata for Māori land
• what monitoring will be undertaken over time to ensure permanence obligations are met
• what processes are in place to return to compliance where permanence obligations are not met
• what contingencies are in place to rectify project failure or reversal arising from technical issues (ie, well-understood strategies and methods such as buffer credit pools, insurance)
• what management strategies are proposed to address risks that are variable or difficult to predict
• who will incur the liability to rectify the project in the event of failure or reversal (eg, extreme weather events). 

^{9 QEII National Trust. 2025. Enduring gains: key insights into meeting the permanence principle in voluntary biodiversity markets.}

3.3    Real, measurable, and verifiable outcomes and risk mitigation

Integrity principle: Real, measurable, and verifiable outcomes and risk mitigation 

Credits, and the projects they represent, deliver the tangible outcomes described and have interventions and outcomes that are appropriate for the project area. 

Credits are supported by evidence from credible and robust monitoring and reporting, and should be verified by a suitably qualified independent third-party to a reputable and publicly disclosed standard. Requirements for evidential rigour in monitoring, reporting and verification are balanced with considerations of practicality, cost-effectiveness and proportionality. 

The risk of any negative impacts, unintended consequences and spillover effects (including leakage) is managed.

The scheme should demonstrate that it requires projects to deliver tangible project outcomes as described in the project methodology and project design, and the outcomes of project interventions are appropriate for the project area. 

The scheme should demonstrate that it has appropriate standards in place to provide:

• project monitoring and reporting at appropriate time intervals
• evidence that the project has been assessed as being appropriate for the project area
• evidence that the project design has been validated
• evidence that project outcomes have been verified
• evidence that validation and verification were undertaken by suitably qualified independent parties
• details of the publicly available validation and verification standards used
• explanation of how risk of any negative impacts, unintended consequences and spillover effects (including leakage) are identified and managed.

Leakage

Leakage may arise from:

• activity shifting where project actions in one area cause negative outcomes elsewhere
• market effects arising when changes in supply and demand from a project lead to higher negative outcomes in other regions
• input/output leakage occurring when resource use in a project indirectly causes negative outcomes elsewhere
• investment leakage when capital is diverted from technologies create more positive outcomes
• ecological leakage, unintended environmental consequences, such as spread of pests or increased pressure on neighbouring ecosystems due to conservation work in the project.

Where leakage occurs and cannot be mitigated, it is assessed and compensated eg, through deduction of verified credits already issued.

3.4    Transparent

Integrity principle: Transparent 

There is transparency over how all integrity principles are being met. 

All stakeholders including credit buyers, project developers, iwi, communities and third-party verifiers can see and understand how credits are created, verified, traded and retired, and what claims are being made. 

While meeting this principle, standards will ensure that the public disclosure of information includes safeguards around sensitive information (including, but not limited to, locations of threatened species or culturally sensitive information).

All stakeholders including credit buyers, project developers, relevant Māori groups, communities and third-party verifiers can see and understand how credits are created, verified, traded and retired, and what claims are being made. 

While meeting this principle, the scheme requirements will ensure that the public disclosure of information includes safeguards around sensitive information (including, but not limited to, locations of threatened species or culturally sensitive information).

To demonstrate conformity with the principle, the scheme should make the following information about projects and their outcomes publicly available and accessible including:

Table 1: Minimum project data disclosure

The scheme should demonstrate that it requires projects to document project outcomes, at appropriate time intervals, using appropriate data protocols.

Data protocols

Schemes encourage projects to use nationally recognised standards for ecosystem classification, extent and condition (eg, National Ecosystem Typology¹⁰ Taskforce for Nature Related Disclosures¹¹, and relevant condition indices), and apply authoritative taxonomic references (eg, New Zealand Organisms Register)¹² for species identification.

Schemes encourage projects to publish species occurrence records through recognised biodiversity data platforms, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility,¹³ for species records where appropriate.

^{10 Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. 2024. National Ecosystem Typology. Prepared for the Ministry for the Environment. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment.} 

^{11 Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (2026). Guidance on the identification and assessment of nature-related issues: the LEAP approach. London UK: Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.}

^{12 New Zealand Organisms Register. Retrieved 15 July 2026.}

^{13 Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 15 July 2026.} 

3.5    Respectful of rights

Integrity principle: Respectful of rights

Safeguards are in place to ensure the rights and interests of all people (including Māori and local communities) are respected and upheld, in alignment with recognised international practice

Scheme safeguards should include requirements for projects to demonstrate that:¹⁴

• appropriate engagement has taken place with relevant Māori groups and local communities, prior to project registration, and engagement will continue throughout the project, commensurate to project implications for rights and interests
• informed consent of relevant Māori groups has been obtained for any aspects of the project which affect those groups’ rights and interests (eg, rights in relation to their whenua, under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011, under a Treaty settlement and customary fishing rights), and will be honoured throughout the project
• all reasonable steps have been taken to identify sites of significance to Māori or other cultural heritage sites located within the project site, and the project will ensure that there are no adverse effects on the sites themselves, access to those sites, or cultural activities undertaken at those sites, or those effects will be minimised and addressed
• the project will appropriately treat and recognise third-party intellectual property rights (including the rights of Māori groups to their mātauranga) and ensure that Māori groups have access to any data collected in areas which those groups exercise rights and interests
• they comply with all relevant labour laws
• they have clear and transparent process to address any grievances in relation to the project that Māori groups or local communities raise over the life of the project.

^{14 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 2011. The Cancun Safeguards set out in paragraph 71 of the decision 1/CP.16. The Cancun Agreements: Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention.}

^{International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). 2026. CORSIA eligible emissions units. Retrieved 15 July 2026.}

^{United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Undated (live). Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM) methodologies.}

3.6    Not double-counted and support accurate claims

Integrity principle: Not double-counted and support accurate claims 

Organisations using credits to make claims should: 

• a. use accurate wording when stating the environmental outcomes of their credit 
• b. ensure the positive environmental outcomes represented by a credit are only used once for a claim.

Projects should avoid double issuance and double use of credits and, in cases where multiple credits are generated from the same project, they will have clear demarcation.

Schemes should have measures in place to prevent double claiming, double issuance and/or double use of credits and use accurate wording when stating project environmental outcomes. 

Where different credit types or outcomes are generated from the same project, this should be clear, for example:

• separate (eg, carbon and biodiversity) stacked credits should have clear demarcation
• bundled credits, which include specific co-benefits (eg, carbon combined with biodiversity) should convey claims about project outcomes proportionate to evidence.

A scheme that issues ex-ante credits, that are sold ahead of the benefits being materialised, should demonstrate that they have appropriate standards in place to mitigate risk, such as:

• using a conservative method to calculate gains (future likely credits) 
• prohibiting retirement of ex-ante credits, until promised gains are realised and verified 
• provision for adjustment to match realised outcomes.¹⁵

Further guidance on disclosure of carbon and nature-related risks and dependencies includes:

• Guidance for Voluntary Climate Change Mitigation¹⁶
• Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures¹⁷ and IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.¹⁸

^{15 World Economic Forum. 2025. High-Level Principles to Guide the Biodiversity Credit Market. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum.}

^{16 Ministry for the Environment. 2026. Guidance for Voluntary Climate Change Mitigation. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment.}

^{17 Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. 2023. Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. London UK: Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.}

^{18 IFRS - IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.}