The Expert Panel
The OCP methodology development process is modeled on the academic peer review process. Instead of building in-house groups, we assemble a group of experts from across academic, industry, and carbon markets to create a balance of experiences and opinions reflecting all viewpoints on a sector, topic, or question. Experts independent of the OCP and relevant Project Developers decide which methodologies & projects are approved, removing the incentive to pass 'low quality' or 'low confidence' methodologies or projects.
Who can be an expert?
Our expert community comprises people representing some expert perspective on the voluntary carbon market and the science, accounting, and project implementation in each of the sectors we look at.
Many of our experts are academic or industrial experts. Still, we also want the community to include people representing the perspective of ‘expert credit buyers,’ ‘expert MRV,’ or other VCM experts.
We ask all experts to self-report their sector expertise, as well as their educational and professional background, organizational affiliations, and published research or reports.
What do the experts do?
Expert panels are assembled from the total body of experts to provide anonymous feedback and discussion on new methodologies from the perspective of their expertise. Experts with no conflict of interest may be selected as ‘Voting Experts,’ responsible for which methodologies are approved or rejected. Other experts on the panel will be ‘Contributors,’ providing comments but without voting rights.
Scientific experts will provide the most input on the science behind the methodology.
Carbon market experts can help craft the VCM-specific sections, such as eligibility, additionality, monitoring, etc.
Buyers share their perspectives on what high-quality credits they want to buy and what information should be required or suggested in the methodology for them to trust the resulting credit.
Once a curator submits a new methodology, the experts have two weeks to provide initial feedback. We expect this to take approximately 6-10 hours over the two week period.
Voting Experts will vote on whether to pass new methodologies or not, conditional on public approval. The criteria they work is:
Does this methodology set conservative and appropriate guidelines based on the latest scientific data for this sector?
If a project developer complied with this methodology, would each carbon credit produced by the project represent at least one tonne of CO2e avoided or removed?
If the answer is no, then what prevents this?
In addition, experts or expert panels may have other opportunities to provide input and feedback on new projects, key OCP questions and issues, and during the annual methodology and project audit process.
How are expert panels assembled?
In the short term, as the OCP is getting set up, the OCP Science team assembles the expert panels, with input from advisors and partners.
Over time, we aim to shift to a community-driven model, where experts within a sector will recommend and approve panels based on what they believe is most needed for a high-quality, trustworthy methodology.
What incentives are there for being an expert?
All experts receive hourly compensation for work on methodology development and approval, paid for by the OCP.
Experts are paid by the hour of work, not the outcome, to ensure incentives are independent of methodologies being approved or rejected.
On top of this, all the experts we’ve talked to and worked with so far are also incentivized to improve the carbon market and increase learning in their chosen sectors.
How is the expert community moderated?
Experts and methodology curators can give anonymous feedback on the work of other experts on their panel. If necessary, this feedback is assessed by the OCP team and the OCP Board. The OCP team also tracks the timeliness of responses and the degree of interaction and collaboration with the methodology curator and other experts.
If any experts are seen to be doing poorly, they are given private feedback and deprioritized in the selection of new expert panels. Repeated poor performance or any major issue (e.g., falsifying data or not identifying conflict of interests) will result in an expert being removed from the expert community and unable to be selected for future expert panels.
How do we ensure quality review and content?
To some degree, the anonymous expert panel is responsible for the quality of the work they choose to approve or reject. We provide guidelines but leave room for the panels to use their expertise to determine the key questions to be solved.
All methodologies also go through a 30-day public commentary period, where anyone can download the methodology and any supporting materials and give feedback, which the methodology curator must respond to and which will be available along with the published methodology on the OCP website.
On top of this, every year the OCP team runs an annual audit process on all methodologies. All methodologies require a full review after 2 years of being published, but the panel also assesses all published methodologies to see if any newer methodology need a full review, too. If any methodology is required to be updated, an expert panel is reassembled to review + approve again. The experts also vote on whether existing projects will need to be stopped and re-submitted, including new validation.
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