Understanding the True Cost of a High-Quality Carbon Project

The voluntary carbon market has grown rapidly in both scale and ambition, yet one of its mostfundamental questions has remained unanswered: what does it actually cost to deliver a high-integrity carbon credit?

This report, produced by Sylvera through collaboration with the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and Sylvera, provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of cost data across multiple project types to address this question.

Key findings include:‍

- Cost benchmarks reveal significant divergence across project types - driven primarily by differences incapital structure.

- Cost of capital is a critical source of cost uncertainty.

- Secondary revenues vary widely and carry implications for additionality.

- Benefit-sharing is characterized by wide variation and limited transparency.

- And the report makes a series of connected recommendations.

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The findings in this report are based on a survey of 53 responses from project developers actively developing or operating carbonprojects across six ARR, biochar, REDD+, cookstoves, regenerative agriculture, and mangroves.