Is Your Carbon Project Ready? The Evidence to Assemble Before Commissioning a Feasibility Study

A carbon project can be promising and still be unready for a useful feasibility study. The problem is rarely the absence of a project idea. It is usually the absence of organised evidence: unclear rights, incomplete baseline records, an assumed methodology, missing operating data, unresolved stakeholder questions or financial assumptions that cannot yet be tested.

A feasibility assessment is meant to test whether the proposed activity has a credible technical, regulatory, methodological and commercial pathway. It should not be used to reconstruct basic project facts that the developer could have assembled first. The stronger the evidence entering the assessment, the faster the adviser can identify genuine opportunities, constraints and development costs.

1. Define the Project Before Testing the Carbon Case

Start with a short project brief that a person outside the organisation can understand. It should state the activity, location, expected scale, implementing entities, intended beneficiaries, development status and proposed start date. It should also explain what is happening now and what the project will change. A broad ambition such as 'reduce waste' or 'restore degraded land' is not yet a project definition.

2. Establish Rights, Authority and Control

Carbon accounting cannot cure an unclear rights position. Before modelling credits, the developer should be able to explain who owns or controls the land, assets, technology, waste stream or other underlying activity; who may implement the intervention; and who may claim, transfer or share the resulting environmental attributes. The exact evidence varies by project type, but unresolved control or carbon-right questions are material feasibility risks.

3. Identify the Standard and Methodology Without Treating Either as Guaranteed

A methodology is not a label added after the project is designed. It defines applicability conditions, project boundaries, baseline and additionality tests, quantification procedures and monitoring requirements. Verra states this directly in its methodology framework. A credible feasibility assessment must therefore test the current methodology version against the actual project facts, not choose a methodology because a similar project used it elsewhere.

4. Build the Baseline Evidence Pack

The baseline describes what would most plausibly happen without the project. It is not simply the current condition and should not be selected because it generates the largest number of credits. The evidence pack should allow the feasibility team to test historical performance, operating practice, market conditions, legal requirements and alternative scenarios.

5. Demonstrate Why the Activity Is Not Business as Usual

Additionality must be tested using the route required by the selected methodology and programme. Depending on the activity, this may involve regulatory surplus, investment analysis, barriers, common practice, prior consideration of carbon finance or a positive list. The developer should retain dated evidence. A later narrative prepared from memory is weaker than contemporaneous budgets, minutes, quotations and financing records.

6. Test Whether the Project Can Be Monitored in Practice

A projected volume is only as credible as the data system that will support it. Verra's project description requirements call for the data and parameters to be monitored over the project, while Kenya's 2026 Guide asks for credible MRV arrangements, defined parameters, data systems, quality controls, reporting responsibilities and verification planning. The feasibility team therefore needs to see not only what could be measured, but who will measure it, how often, with what equipment and how the records will be protected.

7. Prepare Safeguards, Stakeholder and Benefit-Sharing Evidence

Stakeholder engagement is not a communications activity added at validation. Gold Standard identifies safeguards, stakeholder inclusivity and sustainable-development provisions as mandatory across its projects. Kenya's framework also expects affected communities, environmental and social risks, stakeholder engagement, grievance handling and benefit sharing to be addressed at the relevant stages.

8. Map the Kenya Regulatory Pathway

For a Kenya-based project, the feasibility assessment should map national, county and sector requirements alongside the carbon programme rules. The Government's 2026 Guide separates No-Objection, Approval and, where international transfer is sought, Authorisation. At concept stage it looks for a clear project, defined location and duration, additionality and baseline logic, safeguard readiness, legal compatibility, methodology credibility and an initial MRV pathway. Later approval requires a much fuller project design and supporting evidence.

9. Show That the Project Can Be Delivered and Financed

A technically eligible project may still be commercially infeasible. The assessment should test implementation costs, carbon development costs, validation and verification, monitoring, registry fees, working capital, delivery capacity, expected crediting timelines and realistic routes to market. Carbon revenue should not be presented as guaranteed income.

10. Organise an Evidence Room, Not a Folder of Attachments

The final preparation step is document control. Create a structured evidence room with a document register, owners, dates, version numbers and confidentiality levels. Separate source evidence from working analysis. Record assumptions and unresolved questions. A feasibility study is easier to defend when another reviewer can follow the evidence trail without relying on the memory of one project champion.

What a Good Feasibility Study Should Produce

A useful study should conclude with more than an indicative credit volume. It should provide an evidence-based view of methodology fit, baseline and additionality, expected quantification, MRV design, safeguards and stakeholder requirements, regulatory pathway, development schedule, cost range, key risks, data gaps and a clear proceed, proceed with conditions, redesign or stop recommendation.

“The purpose of project readiness is not to make the project look complete. It is to make uncertainty visible early enough to manage it.”

, Supacare Solutions

Use the downloadable Carbon Project Readiness Checklist to review the evidence before appointing an adviser. It is programme-neutral and should be adapted to the project's activity, jurisdiction, selected standard and current methodology. Completion of the checklist does not confirm eligibility, registration, authorisation, issuance, financing or credit price.