Program Revision - September 2025

Public consultation from September 26, 2025 to October 26, 2025

The International Carbon Registry is launching a public consultation to inform development of the ICR program. This consultation will solicit feedback on ICR program documentation to improve the usability and clarity. The consultation entails minor revision to inform clarity on requirements but is not a significant change to the ICR program.

Introduction

The International Carbon Registry (ICR) has revised its core program documents, introducing few new requirements, revisions and clarifications to safeguard environmental integrity, strengthen governance, and support broad participation under the ICR Program. These revisions expand on earlier updates by introducing explicit additionality reporting, dynamic baselines, permanence terms, new validation and verification reporting requirements, and enhanced governance processes including exemptions and grievances. Together, these changes ensure ICR continues to provide a transparent, credible, and internationally aligned framework for climate action.

As the ICR advances, program requirements and procedures are periodically updated to maintain integrity, align with the latest science, expectation of stakeholders, enhance usability, and meet the evolving needs of the voluntary carbon market. The ICR is proposing to make revisions and amendments to the ICR program requirements, processes, and procedures across few key documents and introduce a new document. These updates are designed to enhance clarity, align with ICAO CORSIA emission unit eligibility criteria and ICVCM Core Carbon Principles and maintain alignment with ICROA endorsement criteria.

The updates reflect ICR’s ongoing commitment to align with ISO standards, Article 6 mechanisms, and best practices for voluntary carbon markets. They are designed to enhance clarity, strengthen oversight, and ensure continuous credibility and transparency across project registration, methodology development, credit issuance, and international transfers.

Key highlights of this consultation round include:

Clarification and standardization of additionality requirements including a new requirement for projects to report on ongoing additionality in each monitoring period.
Introduction of dynamic baseline approaches and permanence terms.
Enhanced oversight of validation and verification bodies (VVBs).
Expanded registry functions, including sub-accounts and representation through focal entities.
New procedures for withdrawals, exemptions, and grievances.

Public consultation

ICR is launching a new round of public consultation to finalize updates across key program documents and to introduce a new ICR Additionality Specifications (v1.0). This consultation is according to ICR’s procedures on inviting stakeholders to contribute to any material changes proposed to the ICR program and invites stakeholder feedback to ensure clarity, integrity, and alignment with international best practice.

The general enhancements across all documents include improved clarity and consistency, with added definitions and terminology to ensure clear understanding and coherence. Detailed procedural steps and criteria for various processes have been included, providing stakeholders with precise guidelines.

The documents subject to this public consultation are the following:

ICR Definitions (v3.1 → v3.2) Revised and added definitions and corrections considering developments under A6.4 mechanism (PACM) and dropping legacy definitions and abbreviations.
ICR Requirement Document (v6.0 → v6.1) Additionality levels clarified, and reporting of additionality introduced, refined permanence requirements defining short, mid and long term permanence with stipulation of monitoring after the crediting period, dynamic baselines introduced, clarification on non-permanence scope and contributions.
ICR Process Requirements (v6.1 → v6.2) Enhances procedural transparency (e.g., VVB task reporting milestones), strengthens conformity-assessment provisions, and updates selected timelines and administrative steps. Introducing unintentional and intentional non-permanence events.
ICR Methodology Requirements (v3.0 → v3.1) Appendix II dropped and now included and expanded under ICR additionality specifications. Alignment with added program requirements relating to permanence terms and dynamic baselines.
NEW: ICR Additionality Specifications (v1.0) Codifies the multilevel additionality framework and introduces ex-post (monitoring) reporting on continuous additionality over the crediting period.

These updates intend to strengthen the ICR program, particularly around additionality, permanence, VVB oversight, and governance processes. Stakeholders are invited to review the updated documents and provide comments during the public consultation period. The documents are available on the ICR documentation page, with tracked changes provided for reference on the consultation page. Details about the proposed revision are provided in the document ICR Program Update September 2025.

A public consultation gathering input from stakeholders on the proposed changes is a critical next step to inform and help guide the revision and amendment of the ICR program.

Public consultation summary

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ICR program public consultation Sept 2025.pdf

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Public consultation details

Details about the proposed revision are provided in the document ICR Program Update September 2025.

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ICR Program Update September 2025.pdf

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How to participate in the consultation

A public consultation gathering input from stakeholders on the proposed changes is a critical next step to inform and help guide the revision and amendment of the ICR program.

This consultation invites stakeholders to comment on the proposed revision on the ICR program documentation to deliver climate action at the scale, pace, and integrity needed to support global climate ambitions.

We welcome input on proposed updates that could improve the usability of the ICR Program, such as clarifications of requirements that may cause differences in interpretation between project proponents and validation/verification bodies. These comments will help inform the language of the proposed revision.

We invite you to review and comment on the proposed updates to the ICR program. Please use the public consultation document (below) to provide your comments and submit electronically via the provided online form by 26. October 2025. Your input on these proposals will help us finalize the revision of the ICR program. We look forward to receiving your feedback. If you have any questions during this consultation process, please contact us at [email protected].

Documentation and public consultation

Below all documents subject to the public consultation are provided, both clean versions and redacted from the latest (active) version.

Document

Clean version

Redacted version

ICR Definitions 3.2

ICR Definitions v3.2 clean.pdf

ICR Definitions v3.2 TC.pdf

ICR Requirement Document v6.1

ICR Requirement Document v6.1 Clean.pdf

ICR Requirement Document v6.1 TC.pdf

ICR Process Requirements v6.2

ICR Process Requirements v6.2 Clean.pdf

ICR Process Requirements v6.2 TC.pdf

ICR Methodology Requirements v3.1

ICR Methodology Requirements v3.1 Clean.pdf

ICR Methodology Requirements v3.1 TC.pdf

ICR Additionality Specifications v1.0

ICR Additionality specifications v1.0.pdf

Template for commenting

ICR public consultation document 2025.docx

Timeline

Dates

Activity

26.9.2025

Public consultation opens

16.10.2025

Consultation webinar

26.10.2024

Public consultation closes

Oct/Nov

Review comments and finalize documentation

Nov

Publish changes and updated

documentation

Webinar recording

Public comments

ICR received the following comments during the public consultation through the public consultation form.

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ICR-public-consultation-document-2025.pdf

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Sky-Harvest-ICR-public-consultation-submission-2025.pdf

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ICR-public-consultation-document-2025_TerraMadre.pdf

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2025_ZWC.pdf

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20251025_ICR-public-consultation-document_GREENIPATH-.pdf

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Responses to public comments

ICR has completed responding to all comments received during the public consultation. The consultation outcome is summarized in the following document.

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ICR program post public consultation Sept 2025.pdf

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Furthermore, comments received, along with responses from ICR, are available in the following document.

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ICR public consultation comments responses - September 2025.pdf

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