[5] As of 2024, more than 2,300 projects were registered under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), spanning various sectors such as AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use), energy, transport, waste, manufacturing industries, and others.
They also provided the initial sponsor capital for these non-profit organizations to subsequently convene a team of global carbon market experts to further draft the VCS requirements.
[citation needed] In 2008, the Board of Directors named David Antonioli the organization’s first Chief Executive Officer.
[11] A 2021 study by The Guardian newspaper and Unearthed reported that Verra’s carbon offsetting standard was flawed.
[17] A nine-month investigation published on January 18, 2023 by The Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organization, found that approximately 94% of the rainforest carbon credits certified by Verra – which accounted for about 40% of all credits it approved – do not represent a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.
They also found that the credit scheme may worsen global heating and that the deforestation threat for Verra projects was overstated by 400% on average.
[10] In 2024, a Channel 4 documentary highlighted these concerns alongside claims from Human Rights Watch that it was investigating a Verra carbon reduction project where Indigenous Cambodians lived in fear of homes and farmland being destroyed by armed rangers.