“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.
Buying carbon credits at year-end is no longer enough to secure the best supply.
Many corporates still finalize purchases in Q4, when budgets are set and reporting deadlines loom. But the highest-rated, most compliant credits are increasingly bought earlier, through multi-year agreements.
Buy without a clear framework in place, and you compete for what's left rather than what's best.
The pressure is coming from several directions.
Prices for top-rated credits are pulling away from the rest. Compliance buyers under CORSIA and Article 6 now want the same credits as voluntary buyers. And the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2, which takes effect on 31 January 2027, recognizes carbon credits as part of credible net-zero strategies, adding new demand.
That means carbon credit procurement needs to be run like any other strategic purchase: with clear criteria, independent quality data, price benchmarks, and contracts that protect you.
This guide follows the buying cycle from the first budget conversation to year-end reporting.
Download the full 2027 Buyer's Guide and get the data you need to budget, plan, buy, and report on quality credits. Download the guide.
1. Planning your portfolio and securing budget
A credible program starts long before the first purchase. It needs a clear purpose, written quality guardrails, a sourcing plan, and a multi-year budget the board has approved.
The questions buyers ask
Are the credits having a real impact?
Are we paying the right price?
What will this cost in three years?
Should we buy now or wait?
The answers depend on market data, not instinct. Price and quality vary widely by project type and origin. In Q3 2026, average prices ran from $6–$8 for REDD+ and cookstoves, to $7–$30 for ARR and IFM, and $155–$179 for biochar. Within ARR alone, credits averaged $30.35 in Europe and $9.88 in Asia.
Budgeting from today's spot prices, a generic inflation factor, or a single broker quote misses rising compliance demand and constrained high-quality supply.
A stronger approach models cost in years 1, 3, and 5 under low, medium, and high demand scenarios, then times purchases to match: lock in early where supply is tight, and stay flexible where costs are falling.
Poor process can cost. In one Sylvera analysis, a professional services firm paid an implied $8.02 per tonne for credits that traded at $5.28 for comparable quality. It could have saved $6.6M, or 34% of its spend.
The data you need
- An independent, consistent measure of quality across project types
- Prices by rating, project type, and origin, and what peers retire
- Price, supply, and demand forecasts under different scenarios
How Sylvera helps
Sylvera Ratings give every function a shared measure of quality. Market Intelligence shows what credits cost and what peers buy, so guardrails and target prices are based on evidence, and Market Forecasts give your budget a defensible range. If you have CORSIA or Article 6 exposure, the Article 6 & CORSIA Hub tracks authorization status and adds supply and demand forecasts.
2. Sourcing and diligencing projects
The goal of diligence is a shortlist you can defend to your board, your auditors, and external scrutiny. Registry certification confirms that a project follows its methodology, but not its real impact, or how it compares with alternatives.
The questions buyers ask
What goes in our RFP?
Which projects can we discard straight away?
Is each credit a real tonne?
Will early-stage projects deliver?
The pool of high-quality supply is growing, but so is demand for it. Credits rated BBB or higher made up 43% of issuances in Q1–Q3 2026, up from 28% a year earlier and 13%–16% in 2022–2024. Ratings and labels make a useful first filter: a minimum rating of BBB, or CCP status, screens out projects before you spend time on deep diligence.
Diligence then has to go deeper than the label, across three kinds of risk: integrity (does each credit represent a real tonne?), delivery (will it arrive on time?), and value (will it keep its value?).
Delivery shortfalls are common. Roughly half of ARR projects under-deliver against their initial projections, by around 54% on average.
For credits that depend on Article 6 authorization, country risk matters most. Sylvera's assessment of more than 80 host countries rates only 21% as high confidence for delivering Letters of Authorization and corresponding adjustments.
The data you need
- Ratings, labels, and eligibility for every project on your long list
- A developer's issuance history and past buyers
- A breakdown of integrity risk, and when each rating was last reviewed
- An early view of a pre-issuance project's likely rating and delivery risk
How Sylvera helps
The Project Catalog screens a long list against Sylvera Ratings, CCP and CORSIA eligibility, and retirement data in one place, and the Developer Directory profiles more than 1,400 developers and 10,000 projects.
Pre-Issuance Ratings assess early-stage projects before credits are issued, and Market Gateway lets you put RFPs for spot and pre-issuance credits directly to developers.
3. Negotiating, contracting, and onboarding
Prices move with a combination of rating, compliance eligibility, vintage, geography, co-benefits, and timing. Without a benchmark, it's hard to know whether a quote is fair, or to defend it if the purchase is questioned later.
The questions buyers ask
Is this price fair for the quality?
What are our negotiating levers?
What protections do we need if delivery slips, the rating changes, or authorization is revoked?
Prices for the same project type in the same country can vary widely. In India, ARR credits have traded at spot prices from under $2 to nearly $30. Benchmark each quote against actual transactions for comparable credits, and look at how widely prices spread, not just the average.
Quality also carries a clear premium. ARR credits rated BBB or higher have sold for roughly twice the price of those rated BB or lower in every quarter since Q1 2025, and the spreads in IFM and REDD+ are widening too.
Spot purchases are simple: you pay and the credits transfer. Offtakes need more protection, because you're paying for credits that don't exist yet. Build these clauses into forward agreements:
Delivery milestones - Tie payments to verification events, so funding follows progress
Replacement credits - Provide credits of equal quality if the project under-delivers
Termination rights - Let you exit if the project's rating changes materially
Reversal coverage - Protect nature-based credits through buffer pools or insurance
Authorization terms - Cover what happens if a host country revises or revokes authorization
The data you need
- Transaction-based price benchmarks by rating, project type, and origin
- Pricing for compliance-eligible and authorized credits
- The status and delivery risk of a project's authorization
How Sylvera helps
Market Intelligence gives project-level price estimates and benchmarks, drawing on more than 300,000 transactions, so you know what fair looks like for the quality you're buying.
The Article 6 & CORSIA Hub adds CORSIA futures prices and pricing for authorized credits, and shows a project's authorization status before you agree terms.
4. Monitoring, retiring, and reporting
Once credits have been procured, they still need to arrive as contracted, be retired correctly, and stand up to scrutiny in your disclosures.
The questions buyers ask
Are our projects on track to deliver?
Has anything changed since we bought?
Are retirements recorded correctly?
Can we evidence the quality behind our claims?
Monitor everything you hold, not just offtakes. A spot credit bought last year can be affected by a reversal, a controversy, or a methodology change today. A rating is a point-in-time assessment, so two projects with the same grade can look very different if one reflects last quarter's evidence and the other reflects evidence from 18 months ago.
Retirement is the step that makes your claim valid, and the responsibility stays with you even if a broker or platform retires on your behalf. Each record should show your company as beneficiary, the purpose of the claim and the reporting year it supports, and serial numbers that match the credits you contracted. Under SBTi V2, credits must be retired at the point of claim.
Greenwashing comes from low-quality credits and inflated claims, not from carbon credits themselves. State the scope of any claim, prefer contribution claims over neutrality claims, and make sure your claims match your carbon accounting.
The data you need
- Rating changes and early warning signs across your portfolio
- Up-to-date authorization status for Article 6 credits
- Independent evidence of the quality of what you've retired
How Sylvera helps
Sylvera Ratings and Pre-Issuance Ratings help you monitor your projects and see rating changes across your portfolio, and portfolio-level Ratings data gives you independent evidence to support disclosures and claims.
The Article 6 & CORSIA Hub updates authorization status as the market moves.
5. Where carbon credits fit in your net-zero plan
Carbon credits are one lever in a wider plan. Most corporates are building a net-zero plan across Scopes 1, 2, and 3, using credits alongside lower-carbon commodities, environmental attribute certificates (EACs), and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Each does a different job, and each earns a different claim.
The questions buyers ask
Which lever cuts which scope?
What can we claim for each?
When should we use each one?
Can finance recognize the spend?
For most corporates outside heavy industry, Scope 3 is the bulk of the footprint. A typical tech company's footprint is around 86% Scope 3, and buying lower-carbon materials is how they cut it.
The biggest risk is not knowing what you're allowed to say afterward. Under SBTi V2, physical lower-carbon commodities count toward your reduction target, while certificates and reduction credits are recognized as contribution claims. Removal credits don't count toward the target, but they're required for the net-zero claim itself. That suggests an order: cut what you can at source, act now with certificates where physical supply isn't there yet, go beyond your value chain with high-quality reduction credits, and neutralize what's left with removals.
The data you need
- What each lever counts for under SBTi V2 and other frameworks
- Independent quality signals for certificates as well as credits
- Supply and price data for each lever, mapped to when you'll need it
How Sylvera helps
As your plan widens beyond carbon credits, Market Intelligence and EAC Assurance & Intelligence give you independent quality signals for certificates, and Market Gateway gives you access to supply.
Get the full guide
This article is a snapshot. The 2027 Buyer's Guide covers each stage in more depth, with:
- Regional and vintage pricing tables
- An RFP scorecard with the questions to put to suppliers
- The contract clauses that protect forward purchases
- A stage-by-stage checklist you can use on your own program
