Many believe the use of advanced technologies or geospatial data to support measurements by carbon projects will improve the quality of their claims. However, for many project types, measurement is not the key “quality” issue when it comes to carbon accounting.

Why measurement error is not the key GHG integrity issue

There is a general confusion in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) that new technological tools are what can “save” the carbon market. In particular, tools or high resolution geospatial data that help projects to more accurately measure, for example, changes in forest cover or forest biomass. This is misleading. If we look at the key issues that plague the voluntary carbon market today, they are not related to what experts call “measurement error.”