Making Sense of the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparison of Carbon Offset Standards.

be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit services without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. No use of this publication may be made for resale or any other commercial purpose without written permission of the copyright holders. The authors would like to thank Heather Angstrom for proofreading and editing and Susanne Häfeli-Hestvik and Ann Strömberg for their contributions and comments. We would further like to thank the following people who have reviewed and commented on the following sections: About the Authors Anja Kollmuss works for the Stockholm Environment Institute's US Center, an independent non-profit research organisation dedicated to science-based policy change for a sustainable future. Her research areas include carbon markets, residential energy efficiency, and environmental education. Helge Zink works for the Swedish Tricorona group, a major investor in carbon reduction projects and expert in carbon credit commercialization. Helge works in the mandatory and voluntary carbon markets dealing with risk management and quality control. This report discusses the role of the voluntary carbon market and provides an overview of the most important currently available carbon offset standards. It compares the following standards side-by-side, outlining the most pertinent aspects of each: