Gold Standard was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions featured the highest levels of environmental integrity and also contributed to sustainable development. Gold Standard is a standard and logo certification mark program for non-governmental emission reductions projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Voluntary Carbon Market and other climate and development interventions. It is published and administered by the Gold Standard Foundation, a non-profit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It was designed with an intent to ensure that carbon credits are real and verifiable and that projects make measurable contributions to sustainable development.
Gold Standard is considered the most rigorous climate standard by many NGOs, including WWF and the David Suzuki Foundation. Gold Standard verified projects provide additional social and community benefits in addition to high quality carbon offsetting. Gold Standard-certified projects have created over $20.5 billion in shared value for climate action and sustainable development.
Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) was founded in 2005 by environmental and business leaders who saw the need for greater quality assurance in voluntary carbon markets. VCS now serves as a secretariat for the various standards they develop and programs they manage, as well as an incubator of new ideas that can generate meaningful environmental and social value at scale. VCS is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges by developing and managing standards that help the private sector, countries, and civil society achieve ambitious sustainable development and climate action goals. The VCS Program is the world’s most widely used voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) program. Over 1,600 certified Verra VCS projects have collectively reduced or removed more than 500 million tonnes of carbon and other GHG emissions from the atmosphere.