Supporting stakeholders through the coronavirus crisis

Gold Standard and SustainCERT are committed to keeping project beneficiaries, developers, and VVBs safe during this unprecedented health crisis.
 
We acknowledge the potential disruptions faced by Gold Standard projects in light of restricted global movement, especially for important upcoming milestones like stakeholder consultations, scheduled monitoring activities and on-site validation or verification audits by VVBs. We are carefully considering the most updated COVID-19 prevention guidelines to provide the support our stakeholders need.
 
Our Technical Advisory Committee has approved guidance on measures that can be adopted by projects to ensure that they are not adversely impacted during the duration of this crisis, while still maintaining credibility and rigour. This guidance is based on a project’s status, commitments and on-ground circumstances and will provide alternatives for:

• Stakeholder consultation meetings
• Monitoring activities
• VVB audits
• Submission deadlines

 
Queries on applicability can be sent to covid19@goldstandard.org.
 
We extend our support to all of you doing important climate + development work around the world and wish each of you good health as we all weather this storm together. 
 
Stay safe, stay healthy.

Gold Standard Strategy 2025

We have recently published the Gold Standard Strategy 2025, shared the key implications for different stakeholders, and hosted a webinar to elaborate and answer questions.

View the newsletter>>

Listen to the webinar>>

Opportunities in Soil Organic Carbon

The Gold Standard Strategy 2025 includes a focus on nature based climate solutions, with a specific focus on sequestration or ‘carbon removals.’ We will host a webinar to provide more details about the recently published Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) Framework Methodology.

• Introduction and trends in scientific need and market demand for removals 
• Overview of the Framework Methodology
• Process for approval of an Activity Module and eligible SOC activities
• How the SOC Framework Methodology differs from the ValueChange SOC guidance for corporate Scope 3 emissions.

Value Change Apparel Working Group

Rule updates + clarifications

• VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION BY SAME VVB

• ELIGIBILITY OF GRID CONNECTED WASTE TO ENERGY AND BIOMASS BASED PROJECTS
   
• ELIGIBLE RETROACTIVE CREDITING PERIOD FOR COMBINED DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE CERTIFICATION
   
• LAND USE & FORESTS (LUF) ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS
   
• EDITORIAL CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE SHORTFALL GUIDELINES
   
• CLARIFICATION ON ELIGIBILITY OF PROJECT INVOLVING GMOs 

• SIMPLIFIED METHODOLOGY FOR EFFICIENT COOKSTOVES
   
• SOC ACTIVITY MODULES APPROVAL PROCEDURE
   
• ROTATION FORESTRY PROJECTS UNDER THE AFFORESTATION/REFORESTATION (A/R) METHODOLOGY

• TERMS OF REFERENCE: TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE