Supacare Perspectives
Original commentary, technical explainers, and practice notes from the Supacare team.
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A practical procurement framework for companies buying carbon credits: how to test credit quality, claims risk, delivery risk, and whether a purchase is aligned with ICVCM, VCMI, Oxford and registry requirements.
Brian Njata
Chief Operating Officer
A practical procurement framework for companies buying carbon credits: how to test credit quality, claims risk, delivery risk, and whether a purchase is aligned with ICVCM, VCMI, Oxford and registry requirements.
Corresponding adjustments and ITMO language are now appearing in corporate carbon credit procurement. This guide explains what must be verified before a buyer pays for Article 6 authorisation.
A carbon project is not validation-ready because the concept is strong. It is validation-ready when the evidence file proves the baseline, additionality, monitoring plan, safeguards, stakeholder engagement, and ownership of emission reductions.
Baku's breakthrough on Article 6.4 finalised the mechanism's rulebook, but corresponding adjustments are creating a two-tier credit market that African developers cannot afford to ignore.
Verra's updated agricultural soil carbon methodology introduces tighter additionality thresholds, mandatory remote sensing, and revised default factors, with direct consequences for East African smallholder projects.
After reviewing ESIA reports for 40+ lender-financed projects across East Africa, we have identified five recurring failures that delay financial close, sometimes by over a year.
The East African coastline holds some of the most carbon-dense mangrove forests on earth. Three years after Gazi Bay, the first large-scale blue carbon projects are entering the credit market.
UNFCCC's updated clean cooking methodology introduces mandatory IoT monitoring for large programmes, tighter default emission factors, and a new stove usage survey protocol that fundamentally changes credit accounting.
Nature-related disclosure is moving from voluntary to expected. African corporates and project developers who understand the TNFD-to-credit pipeline will be positioned to capture both compliance value and market premium.
Development finance doesn't have to mean equity dilution. We map the five instruments increasingly used to finance African carbon and nature projects, and the deal structures that work for each project type.
After preparing and reviewing ESIA documentation for more than 40 Category A projects in East, West, and Southern Africa, patterns of failure are clear, and almost entirely preventable.
Standard selection is the most consequential early-stage decision for an African NBS developer. VCS and Gold Standard are not interchangeable, their additionality frameworks, co-benefit requirements and buyer markets differ fundamentally. Here is how to choose.
VM0007 is the world's most widely used REDD+ methodology, but its application in East African forest contexts presents specific technical challenges that are frequently misjudged. This review examines the six areas where African project documents most commonly attract VVB corrective action requests.
Gold Standard's January 2024 mandate for IoT-enabled usage monitoring on large-scale improved cookstove programmes fundamentally changes the economics and MRV design of clean cooking projects in East Africa. Here is what developers need to know before they register.
For smallholder agroforestry projects in Kenya, the choice between Plan Vivo and Verra VCS determines more than certification, it shapes the project's governance structure, monitoring burden, co-benefit architecture and long-term buyer market. This guide compares the two pathways across every dimension that matters.
Kenya's mangrove coast is one of East Africa's highest-priority blue carbon opportunities, but VM0033's soil organic carbon sampling requirements, tidal hydrology baseline modelling and permanence rules create technical barriers that must be resolved before any project reaches validation. This review covers what the methodology demands in the field.
The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body approved the REDD+ transition framework in 2025, opening a direct pathway for African VCS REDD+ projects to generate Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes with host-country authorisation. Here is the methodology and procedural pathway that makes it possible.
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market was created to answer a simple question: what makes a carbon credit credible? Here is what ICVCM is, what the Core Carbon Principles require, and why they matter to anyone involved in voluntary carbon markets.
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative published its Claims Code of Practice to tell companies exactly what they can and cannot say when they use carbon credits. Here is what VCMI is, what the Claims Code requires, and what it means for companies buying credits from African projects.
ACMI was launched at COP27 to accelerate voluntary carbon markets across Africa. It has set ambitious targets and attracted significant political backing. Here is what the initiative is, who is behind it, and what its targets mean.
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