Carbon catch-up | Why third-party verification matters | With DNV
News | 16.05.2023
Monitoring, reporting, and verification: paving the way for a market of high-quality carbon removal
On May 8, Anirban Chatterjee, Head of Business Development, Sales & Marketing for India and the Middle East at DNV, and Climeworks’ Carbon Market Verification Specialist Friedel Pretorius sat down to discuss the role of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) in the emerging carbon removal market. While MRV has received growing attention in the industry, the meaning and processes behind it are not always fully understood. Friedel and Anirban explained what MRV really means and what the collaboration between a carbon removal supplier and verification body looks like, highlighting just how much detailed expertise MRV entails. For corporate buyers who are navigating internal and external expectations about their carbon removal purchases, such robust MRV is key to give quality assurance.
Key take-aways:
- While it is critical to increase the supply of carbon removal on the market as fast as possible, reaching the gigaton target should not come at the expense of high-quality criteria such as durability, additionality, measurability, and safeguarding against social and environmental harm.
- Project developers can prove that they have produced high-quality carbon removal through the monitoring of defined quality parameters, the robust and detailed reporting of the measurements, and their verification by independent third parties like DNV.
- However, it's important to remember that MRV is much more than a final assessment. It needs to be incorporated in the development of a project from the very beginning, influencing decisions in technology design up to contract claims.
- The successful audits by DNV at Climeworks' Orca facility that enabled the delivery of the first third-party verified carbon removal services via direct air capture and storage (DAC+S) is a testament to Climeworks' leadership in DAC+S.
- Verification means that DNV audited Orca operations and confirms Climeworks' carbon removal services performed at Orca followed the validated methodology for DAC+S we co-developed with Carbfix, and that the removals were properly measured and reported.
Editor's note: due to unforeseen circumstances, our third panelist Owen Hewlett (Chief Technical Officer at Gold Standard), could unfortunately not participate in the webinar as originally planned. We look forward to welcoming him at one of our future webinars. Subscribe to our corporate newsletter to stay informed about our next carbon catch-ups.
