VCMI Claims Code of Practice: A Framework for Credible Corporate Carbon Claims

As corporate climate commitments multiply, so does scrutiny over what companies can legitimately say about their carbon credit use. The VCMI Claims Code of Practice provides a structured framework for making those claims with integrity, offering the voluntary carbon market its first widely adopted demand-side standard for corporate communication.

What Is the VCMI Claims Code of Practice?

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) is an international non-profit established in 2021, co-funded by the UK Government and the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. Its Claims Code of Practice was published in June 2023 following two years of research and multi-stakeholder engagement, with a further update released in April 2025 alongside a new Scope 3 Action Code.

The Claims Code addresses a persistent gap in voluntary carbon markets: while registries and standards govern how carbon credits are generated, no equivalent framework existed for how companies could credibly communicate their use of those credits. The Code fills that gap on the demand side.

It is designed to work alongside the ICVCM, which governs supply-side quality through its Core Carbon Principles. Together, the two bodies aim to deliver end-to-end integrity across the voluntary carbon market, covering both what a credit represents and what a company can claim about using one.

Foundational Criteria: The Baseline Before Any Claim

Before making any VCMI Claim, companies must satisfy four foundational criteria. They must maintain and publicly disclose an annual greenhouse gas inventory across all scopes, set and disclose science-aligned near-term emissions reduction targets, demonstrate measurable progress toward those targets through financial allocation, governance, and strategy, and ensure their public policy advocacy does not obstruct ambitious climate regulation.

These criteria are designed to ensure that carbon credits function as a complement to decarbonization, not a substitute for it. Companies that cannot satisfy them are ineligible to make a claim under the Code, regardless of the volume or quality of credits they retire. According to analysis by MSCI Carbon Markets (formerly Trove Research), only around 25% of companies currently using carbon credits have made a net zero commitment that meets VCMI's requirements, which signals the substantial ground that remains to be covered before the Code achieves widespread adoption.

Carbon Integrity Claims: Silver, Gold, and Platinum

The Claims Code defines three tiers of Carbon Integrity Claims, each reflecting a different level of credit use relative to a company's remaining emissions in the claim year:

• Silver: credits covering 20% to less than 60% of remaining emissions

• Gold: credits covering 60% to less than 100% of remaining emissions

• Platinum: credits covering 100% or more of remaining emissions

Remaining emissions refers to the emissions that persist after a company has demonstrated progress toward its near-term targets. All three tiers require companies to retire credits representing mitigation achieved outside their value chain, as beyond-value-chain credits cannot be counted toward internal reduction targets. They represent action above and beyond a company's own decarbonization pathway, not a replacement for it.

The percentage of credits purchased and retired must also increase in each subsequent year after a company makes a Silver or Gold Claim, creating a directional commitment that pushes companies toward higher tiers over time.

Credit Quality, Disclosure, and Third-Party Assurance

VCMI specifies that claims must be backed by high-quality carbon credits, defined as those meeting the ICVCM's Core Carbon Principles. From January 2026, this will mean retiring only CCP-approved or Article 6.4 credits. As a transitional measure, CORSIA-eligible credits have been accepted in the interim, or companies may demonstrate that their due diligence aligns with all 10 CCPs.

Claims must be validated through VCMI's Monitoring, Reporting and Assurance (MRA) Framework, which requires independent third-party verification. Companies submit their claim to VCMI's reporting platform within nine months of their financial year-end, disclosing credit vintage, project type, host country, and methodology. The MRA Framework aligns VCMI's disclosure criteria with CDP, CSRD, IFRS, GRI, and TCFD, which reduces the incremental reporting burden for companies already working within those standards.

Key Takeaway

The VCMI Claims Code provides a structured, verifiable pathway for companies to communicate their carbon credit use without crossing into greenwashing territory. Its three-tier structure rewards increasing ambition, while the foundational criteria ensure that credits remain supplementary to real emissions reductions rather than a workaround for them. For corporate buyers, advisors, and project developers, familiarity with the Claims Code is increasingly a baseline expectation in any serious engagement with the voluntary carbon market.