Platts to move annual roll for reflected vintages in Voluntary Carbon Credit Assessments to first working day of Q3

Platts, a division of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will amend the annual roll for the vintages reflected in its Voluntary Carbon Credit assessments to the first working day of Q3 from the start of 2023 onwards.

This decision follows on from a proposal made Oct. 21 in a note available here: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/subscriber-notes/102122-platts-proposes-to-move-the-annual-roll-for-reflected-vintages-to-first-working-day-of-q3 .

Currently, Platts methodology rolls on the first working day of the new year, with all assessments reflecting new vintages. For example, under the current methodology, the Platts Household Devices assessment reflects vintages from the last four years, including current year, which is 2019-2022. On Jan. 3, 2023, this would have updated to 2020-2023.

Under this methodology change, instead of updating the vintages reflected in its methodology on Jan. 3, 2023, Platts will instead update the vintages reflected from July 3, 2023. In the above example, on Jan. 3, 2023, Platts Household Devices will continue to reflect vintages from 2019 to 2022 and would only roll to reflecting vintages 2020 to 2023 on July 3, 2023.

This decision follows on from the Platts Voluntary Carbon Markets methodology consultation here: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/subscriber-notes/062822-platts-to-launch-voluntary-carbon-markets-methodology-consultation .

As part of the consultation, Platts sought feedback from market participants on various elements that make up the Platts voluntary carbon credit methodology. The feedback was sought as part of the process to ensure Platts assessments reflect the fast-evolving market.

This decision has been made following both research as well as market feedback, which shows that credits reflecting current year vintage are not available for most product types until later in the calendar year, following the verification of individual project emissions data. While credits for current year vintages for some project types are available promptly into the new year -- Renewable Energy and Methane Collection, for example -- current year vintage credits from other types of projects -- Agriculture, Forestry & Land Use (AFOLU) and Household Devices projects, for example -- typically take longer to verify.

Please send any further feedback to Platts_Carbon@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com.

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