Recommendations for the Digital Voluntary and Regulated Carbon Markets

The document identifies critical failures in current carbon markets, including lack of transparency, exclusion of vulnerable populations, and insufficient scale. It recommends transitioning to 'digitally native' carbon markets using distributed ledger technology (DLT) and open-source measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) protocols to automate validation, reduce reliance on intermediaries, and ensure equitable benefit sharing.

• Current carbon markets suffer from significant transparency and integrity issues, particularly regarding the monitoring, issuance, and retirement of credits, which forces buyers to rely on costly intermediaries to manage reputational risk.
• Existing market structures are characterized by inaccessibility and inequity, effectively excluding women, Indigenous people, and smallholder land stewards due to high operational costs and a lack of socioeconomic impact data.
• The document argues that distributed ledger technology (DLT) can transform carbon markets by representing credits as unique digital entities, enabling the verification of provenance and permanent retirement without centralized intermediaries.
• To improve market clarity and comparability, the authors recommend adopting a common baseline taxonomy and expanding tradable assets to include 'beyond-carbon' factors such as biodiversity and Indigenous rights.
• The transition to digitally native credits allows for the automation of validation and verification by integrating data feeds from satellite imagery and IoT sensors, reducing the need for physical site visits by consultants.
• The paper emphasizes the need for interoperability through open APIs and harmonized data standards to prevent the creation of data silos and to facilitate real-time carbon credit usage reporting.
• Current carbon credit outcomes are failing to meet climate goals, with reduction, protection, and removal credits achieving less than 20% of IPCC targets.

APA

World Economic Forum (2023). Recommendations for the Digital Voluntary and Regulated Carbon Markets. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Recommendations_for_the_Digital_Voluntary_and_Regulated_Carbon_Markets.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Recommendations for the Digital Voluntary and Regulated Carbon Markets. 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Recommendations_for_the_Digital_Voluntary_and_Regulated_Carbon_Markets.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Recommendations for the Digital Voluntary and Regulated Carbon Markets |date=March 2023 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Recommendations_for_the_Digital_Voluntary_and_Regulated_Carbon_Markets.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2023recommendations, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Recommendations for the Digital Voluntary and Regulated Carbon Markets}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2023}, month = mar, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Recommendations_for_the_Digital_Voluntary_and_Regulated_Carbon_Markets.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }