Monitoring, reporting and verification
This page is in beta draft.
Monitoring (or measuring), reporting and verification (MRV) is central to delivering trust and confidence in CDR options, both in their removal efficacy and in their impacts on social, environmental and human-made systems impacts.
Reliable, transparent and comprehensive reporting of information via standardised methods enables accurate evaluation of project success and comparisons between approaches.
Our MRV indicators
Measurement approach
Currently, there is wide variation in methodologies across voluntary carbon markets, and methods are not always transparent. There are limited standard methods for environmental and social indicators and different assumptions used to assume integration into human-made systems. This all limits the ability to compare different projects on a fungible basis.
We suggest applying the UNFCC’s five principles for GHG emissions reporting across all of evaluation indicators (environmental and social in addition to GHG emissions estimations. These principles include credibility, completeness, comparability, accuracy and transparency.
| Score | Description/justification |
| 1 | Weak standards: overly generic simplistic methods, incomplete consideration of fluxes and sinks, lack of project specific spatial data, no environmental or social indicators, partial life cycle analysis, no consequential analysis, lack of transparency in methods or data-sharing. |
| 2 | Weak. |
| 3 | Neutral. Clearly identified comparable minimum standards that include project specific data but still a simplified but pragmatic methodological approach. Transparent methods, transparent sharing of output data. Some attempt at assessing environmental and social indicators perhaps through applying sustainability criteria. |
| 4 | Strong. |
| 5 | Best available methods for GHG flux (tier 3, project and site-specific data across full life cycle). Full MRV methods applied across a range of environmental, social and human-made systems indicators for the entire life cycle. Consequential quantitative and qualitative assessment whilst remaining pragmatic for what is achievable given MRV costs and capacities. Methods are fully transparent (potentially including capacity-building technology transfer and tools/training). Full data sharing including input data that can be used to assess and research methodological improvement. Uncertainties might be high, but they are fully assessed. Built-in flexibility for updating over timeline of project. |