“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.
The carbon market continues to mature. What was once seen as a testing ground for environmental science is now viewed as a mainstream way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet climate strategy goals. As such, companies purchasing carbon credits is now common practice.
There's just one problem: legacy procurement methods are opaque, slow, and untrustworthy. Put simply, these methods make it hard to align carbon credits with strategic goals.
You can address this issue by developing a high-performance carbon credit procurement strategy that meets regulatory requirements and contributes to meaningful climate change. The eight-step process below will show you how. Let's get started.
1. Set your guiding principles before you buy anything
Don't rush to acquire carbon credits—either by chasing the newest emerging project type or by panicking in response to policy pressure. Instead, take time to align stakeholders, define what a successful carbon credit procurement looks like, and choose procurement principles:
- Align stakeholders internally: Bring your sustainability, finance, procurement, and compliance personnel together. That way everyone can voice their opinions, drivers, and concerns.
- Define what success looks like: Ask stakeholders to identify carbon-related goals for your company. Do you want to hit specific climate targets? Build a brand around renewable energy and other green principles? Be seen as a frontrunner in innovative new project types? Reduce costs by investing at an early stage? All of the above? When you answer these questions, you can invest in a more strategic way.
- Choose procurement principles: Lastly, choose philosophies to abide by. For example, will you only invest in carbon removal projects? Or work with project developers who prioritize co-benefits (like how reforestation projects lead to carbon capture and habitat restoration, soil conservation, etc.)? Or only pursue high-quality credits that guarantee compliance? Decide what matters to your organization.
Carbon credit buyers have a lot of details to work out before they buy. Fortunately, proven frameworks make the process easier. For instance, ICVCM identified 10 fundamentals for purchasing carbon offset credits. VCMI developed a Claims Code of Practice to help ensure the integrity of the voluntary carbon market. Other frameworks include CORSIA, EU, and CRCF. Each of these frameworks can inform your company's approach to purchasing credits.
2. Understand the carbon market you’re buying into
Carbon markets turn CO2 emissions into tradable commodities.
Sellers in the market generate carbon credits via emission reduction efforts, reforestation project development, renewable energy investments, etc. Buyers in the market procure the carbon credits generated to offset the carbon footprint their companies create.
There are two carbon markets: compliance and voluntary. The compliance market uses government regulations to reduce emissions in specific industries. Participation is mandatory and credits are procured to avoid fines. The voluntary market is not regulated by governments. Companies and individuals participate as part of their self-driven net-zero strategies to offset emissions and improve their reputations.
Key carbon credit procurement trends in 2025
You need to understand current industry trends to build a high-performance carbon credit procurement strategy. Here are the biggest trends we expect to see in 2025 and beyond:
- Price divergence: The price of carbon credits varies wildly. Some cost $5, others cost $500. It typically depends on the carbon project's quality, running costs, and demand.
- Project quality: Buyers are willing to pay more for high-quality carbon credits. Carbon accounting, additionality, and permanence are important to companies in this space.
- Regional policies: Local regulations, like California's AB 1305 and the EU's Green Claims laws, aim to prevent greenwashing. Companies must share specific details to support environmental claims. These laws could drive demand for high-quality projects.
3. Build a cross-functional carbon procurement taskforce
Now that you know the market, it's time to build your procurement team.
First, understand that isolation is the enemy. You should build a cross-functional taskforce that includes sustainability, finance, and legal professionals—as well as the c-suite.
Why is this important? Because it will align the individuals within your company. What if your Head of Sustainability wants to invest in durable carbon removal, which typically costs more, but your CFO will only sign off on cheap forestry projects that don't progress climate goals?
This would be a problem. Fortunately, it can be solved by breaking down silos. For example, your Head of Sustainability can educate your CFO as to why nature based solutions are more valuable, should be seen as an investment rather than a cost, etc. When your CFO understands the benefits, and can better forecast future prices, they'll likely get on board.
4. Set quality and risk criteria that align with your principles
What's your due diligence process? In other words, how do you assess the quality and risk criteria for different carbon project types? Simple: you align with your guiding principles.
- Quality: What does quality mean to your organization? Do you have a certain rating threshold that every project needs to meet? Are you looking for certain co-benefits? Do you only invest in specific host countries that meet certain standards or prioritize innovative solutions? Set quality criteria for your company to make buying credits easier.
- Risk: How much risk can your organization handle? There's delivery risk, legal risk, and reputational risk to think about. There's also the potential for double counting, which is prohibited in Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Developers sometimes issue the same credit to multiple entities to increase carbon revenue. This could cause legal trouble for your company. At the very least, it will keep it from maximizing impact. (Note: if your company is very risk-averse, consider purchasing insured carbon credits.)
The Sylvera platform helps users assess the quality and risk of carbon credits. Our independent ratings are not only trustworthy, they can be used to apply consistent scores to different projects, mitigating the risks we mentioned above.
Even better, our Project Catalog can help you find high-quality projects in minutes. Looking for carbon removal projects? What about methane capture projects? The Sylvera platform includes easy search and filter features to find what you need fast. This will save you hours of time.
5. Streamline supplier discovery and carbon credit transactions
It's time to procure carbon credits that align with your principles and goals.
In the past, you would scour the internet and send a request for proposal (RFP) to every potential seller. It was a long and tedious process. Good news: there's a better way.
Centralized supplier networks like Sylvera’s Connect-to-Supply allow users to source credits from 250+ trusted suppliers. You can find credits that meet your specific criteria in record time. Just as important, credits can be sourced at any stage, from pre-issuance, to spot, to forward.
Also worth mentioning, Sylvera partners with Xpansiv to simplify carbon credit procurement. The result? Users can obtain credits faster and at a lower cost—and with a single contract.
6. Use market intelligence to guide timing and pricing
Knowing what to buy and when to buy it are two different things. After all, credit pricing is volatile. The last thing you want to do is mistime your purchase and overpay for carbon credits.
The question is, how do you ensure timely credit issuance? We have a few ideas:
- Look for purchasing trends: Keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. Analyze supply and demand trends in many countries around the world. Understand buyer behavior and how companies procure carbon credits. Then aggregate this information to determine undervalued credits and ensure low cost credit delivery for your organization.
- Leverage available retirement data: A carbon credit certifies the capture or avoidance of one tonne of CO2. Once a carbon credit is used it needs to be "retired," i.e. permanently removed from the marketplace, to avoid double accounting. Retired credits data will teach you a lot about credits issued in recent months. This knowledge will help you identify purchasing trends and pinpoint undervalued, low cost projects.
- Implement a blended price strategy: Last but not least, invest in carbon reduction credits (actions that reduce greenhouse emissions,) carbon removal credits (projects that extract and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,) and carbon avoidance credits (actions that prevent carbon-admitting activities.) By investing in all three credits, you'll build a strong, low risk portfolio that limits legal issues and betters the environment.
7. Monitor project delivery over time—don’t buy and forget
Carbon credit procurement is an ongoing process.
Once you buy high-quality credits that align with your company's principles and goals, you need to monitor them to make sure you actually receive the credits you paid for.
You should also monitor pre-issuance carbon credit performance via quarterly updates and alerts. That way you're not caught off guard if/when a project goes awry. Should project development stall or policy changes impact your investment, you'll be able to act in a timely manner.
Have there been jurisdictional developments? Has a project developer made significant design adjustments? These things can impact performance. As such, you should know about them ASAP. Sylvera Monitoring will give you the information you need, when you need it.
8. Measure and report procurement success
Finally, track all relevant metrics including delivery percentage achieved, cost per tonne, and average rating score. Then report on these metrics internally and externally.
- Internal reports: Use metrics to build internal reports for finance teams and company leadership. This will help them understand the value of each carbon credit investment. Understanding will lead to support and prevent reallocation of funds to other programs.
- External reports: Use metrics to build external reports for regulators and avoid legal issues. Then publish sustainability reports online to broadcast company values and connect with customers who care about clean energy and climate change efforts.
Sylvera's Monitoring suite of tools can help track important metrics; support disclosures needed to comply with CA AB1305, CSRD, and other regulations; and align reporting with net zero claims, SBTi, and/or ESG goals. Because of this, Sylvera is a valuable reporting tool.
Level up your carbon credit procurement
High-performance carbon credit procurement is mission critical in 2025. If you can't secure quality credits at acceptable prices, your company could face fines and reputational damage.
To succeed in this market, buyers need a trustworthy tool to find carbon projects, assess project development quality, and streamline the procurement process. Sylvera is that tool.
With Sylvera, you'll get quality insights, access to top suppliers, and project monitoring features. Put another way, Sylvera will help you build your carbon credit procurement strategy on a foundation of integrity. Request a free Sylvera demo today to learn more.
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