Carbon Market Credibility: Communications in an Era of Scrutiny

The Reckoning Was Necessary

In 2021, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) was a $2.1 billion sector riding a wave of net-zero pledges, corporate ambition, and seemingly boundless demand. By 2024, that figure had fallen to roughly $535 million, a decline of more than 70%. Trading volumes collapsed. Blue-chip buyers quietly stepped back. The narrative shifted from opportunity to liability.

What happened in between was not a market failure. It was a credibility correction.

A Guardian investigation found that approximately 94% of Verra’s rainforest offset credits, generated under the REDD+ methodology, likely did not represent genuine emission reductions. South Pole, the world’s largest carbon credit developer, was accused of overstating the climate benefits of its flagship Kariba project by a factor of five, and subsequently proactively cancelled 2.5 million credits. Verra’s CEO resigned in June 2023. The CQC Impact Investors case became the first-ever coordinated federal enforcement action against carbon credit fraud, involving $250 million in allegedly fraudulent claims.

Delta Air Lines faced a lawsuit over its “carbon-neutral airline” marketing. Apple was challenged on carbon-neutral claims for its Watch. Shell quietly abandoned a $100 million per year offset purchasing plan. Across the board, more than 2,700 ESG-related lawsuits have been filed globally, many touching directly on carbon credit claims.

The voluntary carbon market did not break because the concept was flawed. It broke because the gap between what was being communicated and what was actually being delivered became indefensible.

For anyone operating in carbon markets today (project developers, credit buyers, intermediaries, fund managers) this history is not background reading. It is the operating context for every communication you produce.

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The Integrity Infrastructure Is Being Built

The correction has catalysed a wave of institutional response that is reshaping how carbon markets function. The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has established its Core Carbon Principles (CCP) as a quality benchmark, approving seven programs and 36 methodologies as of late 2024. Verra’s new REDD+ methodology, VM0048, was among those approved in November 2024.

The market is responding to these signals. CCP-labelled credits now command a roughly 25% price premium, and an estimated 40% of buyers actively seek them out. Carbon removal credits, which represent actual tonnes removed from the atmosphere rather than tonnes avoided, command a 381% price premium over reduction credits, up from 245% in 2023. The market is clearly differentiating on quality, and pricing reflects it.

Meanwhile, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is creating a structured role for carbon credits within its V2 framework. The emerging Over-and-above Environmental Results (OER) framework, anchored to a reference carbon price of $80 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, represents a significant shift from SBTi’s previous scepticism toward voluntary credits. Morgan Stanley research indicates that over 90% of current buyers intend to continue purchasing credits.

The demand is not disappearing. It is becoming more discerning.

But integrity governance is not seamless

The ICVCM process has not been without controversy. Two expert panel members resigned in protest over what they characterised as insufficient rigour in certain methodology approvals. This is worth acknowledging, not to undermine the ICVCM’s role, but to recognise that the integrity infrastructure is itself a work in progress, subject to the same scrutiny it seeks to impose on the market.

For communicators, this complexity is the point. Integrity cannot be reduced to a label or a badge. It requires ongoing, transparent engagement with methodology, additionality, permanence, and the evolving science beneath them all.

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Why Communications Must Change

The pre-2023 communications playbook for carbon markets was, broadly speaking, built around aspiration. Companies announced net-zero targets, purchased offsets, and communicated their climate action through broad, optimistic language. Carbon neutrality was marketed as an achievable endpoint rather than an ongoing, complex process of measurement, reduction, and compensation.

That playbook is now a litigation risk.

The new environment demands a fundamentally different approach to how carbon market participants communicate, one grounded in specificity, methodological transparency, and what we might call structured humility.

Three shifts are essential:

• From claims to evidence. Every assertion about carbon impact must be traceable to a specific methodology, registry, and verification standard. “We offset our emissions” is no longer sufficient. Stakeholders, and increasingly regulators, want to know which credits, under which methodology, verified by whom, with what approach to additionality and permanence.
• From certainty to transparency. The most credible actors in the market today are those willing to discuss limitations openly. South Pole’s proactive cancellation of 2.5 million Kariba credits, whatever one thinks of the circumstances that necessitated it, was a communications act as much as an operational one. It signalled that the organisation prioritised accuracy over volume. Contrast this with actors who, when challenged, defaulted to defensive silence or corporate boilerplate.
• From promotion to education. In a market where even sophisticated buyers struggle to distinguish between avoidance, reduction, and removal credits, and where the price difference between them carries a 381% premium, the organisations that invest in genuine stakeholder education will build deeper trust. The communications function is no longer just about positioning. It is about market literacy.

In a market defined by scepticism, the organisations that communicate with the most rigour will be the ones that earn the most trust. Silence is not a strategy. Neither is spin.

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What Good Looks Like: Five Principles for Carbon Market Communications

Working with climate finance organisations navigating this landscape, we see five principles that separate credible carbon market communications from the rest.

1. Lead with methodology, not marketing

When discussing carbon credits, whether as a buyer, developer, or intermediary, the methodology should be front and centre. Name the standard. Reference the vintage. Explain the verification process. This is not about burying stakeholders in technical detail; it is about demonstrating that the detail exists and that you understand it thoroughly.

2. Distinguish clearly between credit types

The market is increasingly bifurcated between avoidance/reduction credits and removal credits, with pricing that reflects a massive quality premium. Communications that conflate these categories, or that use the umbrella term “offsets” without qualification, signal a lack of fluency that sophisticated stakeholders, journalists, and regulators will notice.

3. Acknowledge the integrity debate directly

Pretending that the credibility crisis did not happen, or treating it as a resolved matter, is not credible in 2026. The most effective communicators reference the market’s reckoning directly, explain what has changed in methodology and governance, and position their own practices within that context. The ICVCM’s CCP framework, Verra’s VM0048, and the SBTi’s evolving stance on credits are all part of this story, and your stakeholders expect you to know it.

4. Build a disclosure-first communications culture

With more than 2,700 ESG-related lawsuits globally and regulatory frameworks tightening across jurisdictions, the cost of overclaiming has never been higher. A disclosure-first approach, where communications are built around what can be verified rather than what sounds impressive, is both a legal safeguard and a brand strategy. The Delta and Apple lawsuits are instructive: both companies had genuine climate commitments, but their communications outpaced what the evidence could support.

5. Invest in ongoing narrative, not one-off announcements

A single press release about a carbon credit purchase means very little in isolation. What builds credibility is a sustained narrative arc: how your approach is evolving, what you have learned, how your portfolio of credits is shifting toward higher-quality instruments, and what challenges remain. This is thought leadership in the truest sense, not self-promotion dressed in white papers, but genuine contribution to market understanding that positions your organisation as a serious, long-term participant.

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The Market Is Maturing. Communications Must Mature With It.

The voluntary carbon market’s contraction from $2.1 billion to $535 million was painful. It destroyed value, eroded trust, and gave ammunition to those who argued that carbon markets were fundamentally unreliable. But it also did something essential: it forced a reckoning with quality, methodology, and integrity that the market’s rapid growth phase had papered over.

What emerges on the other side will be a smaller but more credible market, one where CCP-labelled credits, removal-based approaches, and transparent disclosure are not differentiators but table stakes. The price premium data already reflects this trajectory. The SBTi’s emerging framework confirms it. The continued purchasing intent of 90%+ of existing buyers suggests that capital is not fleeing the market. It is waiting for the market to earn its confidence back.

For carbon market participants, the communications imperative is clear. The organisations that communicate with specificity, transparency, and methodological rigour will define the next chapter of this market. Those that revert to vague claims and aspirational language will find themselves on the wrong side of a credibility threshold that has moved permanently.

At Symbiont Communications, we work with climate finance organisations, including carbon market participants, fund managers, and institutional buyers, to build communications infrastructure designed for exactly this moment. Not spin. Not greenwashing. Strategic, evidence-grounded communications for a sector where credibility is the only currency that compounds.

The market is listening more carefully now. Make sure what you are saying holds up.