“Over the years we’ve invested significantly in our field data team - focusing on producing trusted ratings. While this ensures the accuracy of our Ratings, it doesn’t allow the scale across the thousands of projects that buyers are considering.”
For more information on carbon credit procurement trends, read our "Key Takeaways for 2025" article. We share five, data-backed tips to improve your procurement strategy.
One more thing: Connect to Supply customers also get access to the rest of Sylvera's tools. That means you can easily see project ratings and evaluate an individual project's strengths, procure quality carbon credits, and even monitor project activity (particularly if you’ve invested at the pre-issuance stage.)
Book a free demo of Sylvera to see our platform's procurement and reporting features in action.
Carbon markets are sitting on a paradox: potential CORSIA Phase 1 supply dwarfs demand, yet the market is functionally supply-constrained. New data from carbon data platform Sylvera shows that while 640 million tonnes of credits are theoretically eligible for Phase 1 compliance, only 47 million tonnes currently meet all requirements, not because the projects don't exist but because host country authorisations haven't kept pace.
Even on an optimistic basis, including credits from countries Sylvera rates as likely to deliver authorisations, the accessible pool reaches only 118 million tonnes: still well short of demand, and subject to meaningful delivery risk.
"The strangest thing about this market is that everyone is behaving rationally and the outcome is still irrational. Buyers won't commit because they can't see the supply; host countries won't issue authorisations because prices are too low to justify the political capital. Meanwhile a $2–5 billion compliance deadline is approaching and the clock is running." Ben Rattenbury, VP Policy, Sylvera
The authorisation bottleneck
The constraint is not project quality but authorisation. Letters of Authorisation from host country governments have become the primary gatekeeper of carbon credit value under the Paris Agreement's Article 6, yet the issuance pipeline has not kept pace with demand.
The largest single authorised tranche tracked by Sylvera’s Country Profile is Guyana's JREDD+ programme for 24.9 million tonnes. The next largest is 2.8 million tonnes. Authorised supply at scale is concentrated in a handful of countries, while the LoA pipeline in most others remains opaque and slow.
To complicate the picture further, CORSIA-eligible credits do not always end up in CORSIA. Sylvera data already shows CORSIA-tagged African cookstove credits selling into the voluntary market - meaning headline eligible figures overstate what is actually available for airline compliance.
Airlines flying into a crunch
The demand driven by CORSIA is not a potential issue for 2030 and it’s already becoming evident. Sylvera's airline-level emissions modelling shows that CORSIA accounts for 69% of all adjusted-credit demand to 2030 - 666 million tonnes out of a total 969 million tonnes when government NDC purchases are included.
Phase 1 demand alone stands at 174.5 million tonnes, driven by international carriers including Emirates (10.82mt), United Airlines (8.72mt), Qatar Airways (7.6mt) and Turkish Airlines (7.5mt). At least one airline in the top 15 by obligation has signalled it does not intend to comply, introducing further uncertainty into demand projections already complicated by a 53 million tonne swing depending on outcome from the Iran conflict.
The longer term shift is equally consequential. Sylvera forecasts that voluntary market buyers, who accounted for roughly 85% of final carbon credit demand in 2025, will see that share fall to around 30% by 2033 as CORSIA, domestic compliance and Article 6 NDC demand compete for the same supply.
Sylvera launches Article 6 & CORSIA Hub
To address the intelligence gap at the centre of this market dislocation, Sylvera today launches the Article 6 & CORSIA Hub, a platform consolidating supply tracking, sovereign risk scoring, demand forecasting, airline exposure modelling and live pricing in a single, continuously updated engine. The Hub is available immediately as a standalone subscription and in bundle with Sylvera's Market Intelligence and Forecasts products, find out more here.
"The supply to meet aviation's climate obligations exists. What's been missing is the data infrastructure to connect it with demand. The Hub exists so that every participant - airline, sovereign, investor, developer — can see exactly where in the pipeline opportunity lies, and act on it with confidence."" Allister Furey, CEO, Sylvera
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