Methodology Development Process
The OCP Methodology tool is for collaborative, fast and antifragile methodology development and approval.
Methodology development and approval is completely independent of the OCP Registry and OCP team. This independence removes the conflict of interest and misaligned incentives of a registry writing and approving methodologies, and issuing carbon credits from those methodologies.
Instead of writing methodologies internally, new methodologies can be proposed by any stakeholder: project developers, dMRV providers, NGOs, academic groups or anyone else in the market. A panel of experts & stakeholders involving academic and industry experts, potential project partners, rating agencies and buyers will work together to iterate on and improve the methodology. A subset of independent, voting experts decide whether a methodology should be published or not.
Methodology Proposal, Expert Feedback and Approval Process:
The duration of the process varies, but it usually takes an average of 4-5 rounds for the expert panel to reach initial consensus to push the methodology out to public commentary, or fully reject. This has taken 5-7 months for currently approved methodologies, but is largely driven by the turnaround time by the methodology curator. If approved, it then undergoes a 1 month public commentary period before being published. All approved methodologies are publicly available. Expert's comments and decisions, as well as public commentary and responses are publicly available alongside the published version. We also maintain a list of methodologies currently under review and upcoming sectors of interest.
OCP Approved Methodologies:
Relevant Definitions
For more terms, see the Glossary.
Methodology
The framework document defining project eligibility and other project requirements, as well as the GHG Emission Reduction or Removal quantification calculations for projects that generate carbon credits. OCP Methodology Requirements List of OCP Approved Methodologies.
Approved Methodology
A methodology that meets both OCP Methodology Requirements and the Voting Criteria, as decided by the Voting Experts on the Expert Panel.
Methodology Curator
The person or organization that proposes a specific methodology or methodology version on the OCP and is responsible for integrating comments and feedback into the methodology. They are not included in the final vote on whether a methodology should be approved. The curator could be the author of the methodology, or a group responsible for bringing an open source methodology to the OCP.
Expert Panel
A group of experts assigned to a specific methodology to provide feedback and help improve the methodology. Split into Voting Experts and Contributors.
Voting Experts
Members of the expert panel who can have both commenting and voting rights on a specific methodology. Each expert can indicate when they think the methodology is 'Ready for Public Commentary' and will vote in the final round on whether a methodology should be approved or not. Voting Experts must be completely independent of the OCP and Curator, and have no incentive to either pass or reject a methodology. The OCP will run a methodology-specific conflict of interest check before any new methodology or version update process is kicked off.
Contributors
Non-voting members of the expert panel - can leave and respond to comments, but will not decide when a methodology is ready for public commentary or vote on whether to approve or reject. Contributors either have an incentive to pass or reject the methodology, a conflict of interest with the OCP or Curator, or have indicated a need to stay impartial from methodology approval (e.g. Project Developers, dMRV, Buyers, certain NGOs)
Platform Partner
OCP partner organizations that sit as Contributor on all/most Expert Panels to perform a specific review process. Currently, we have a partnership with kita.earth to provide feedback on reversal risk analysis and Buffer Pool creation.
Proposing a New Methodology
Delivering high quality carbon credits to the market begins with robust and well-defined methodologies. The OCP is designed to allow methodology curators and panel of experts to work collaboratively to develop carbon credit methodologies that are both scientifically sound and accepted by the market.
All methodologies will be slightly different, but all methodologies must include the key sections and requirements in the OCP Methodology Requirements. If a curator believes a methodology doesn’t require a specific section, they must outline the reasoning to the expert panel.
"Must" = requirement
"Should" = recommendation
Best practice in each section will depend on the specific sector, and is constantly being improved upon by market initiatives, so we recommend looking at the resources highlighted in the Methodology Requirements.
The OCP team will help the methodology curator run a gaps and issues check against the OCP Methodology Requirements upon proposal and before the final vote. The OCP team facilitates the process (coordinating review rounds, managing public consultations, ensuring procedural compliance) but does not vote on, and cannot override or influence, the outcome of the expert panel decision.
The OCP now accepts methodologies via an in-platform form (vs. one PDF document), to allow for better readability, expert feedback and the ability to innovate on methodology presentation in the future.
Expert Review
Each methodology is assigned an Expert Panel of 8-15 experts representing academia, industry and the voluntary carbon market. This panel is split into Voting Experts, Non-Voting Contributors and Platform Partners. All experts complete a COI attestation before participating in any methodology review and annually thereafter. Any expert with a material interest in the outcome of a given methodology cannot sit as a Voting Expert.
Members of the expert panel who can have both commenting and voting rights on a specific methodology. Each expert can indicate when they think the methodology is 'Ready for Public Commentary' and will vote in the final round on whether a methodology should be approved or not. Voting Experts must be completely independent of the OCP and Curator, and have no incentive to either pass or reject a methodology. The OCP will run a methodology-specific conflict of interest check before any new methodology or version update process is kicked off.
Non-voting members of the expert panel - can leave and respond to comments, but will not decide when a methodology is ready for public commentary or vote on whether to approve or reject. Contributors either have an incentive to pass or reject the methodology, a conflict of interest with the OCP or Curator, or have indicated a need to stay impartial from methodology approval (e.g. Project Developers, dMRV, Buyers, certain NGOs).
OCP partner organizations that sit as Contributor on all/most Expert Panels to perform a specific review process. Currently, we have a partnership with kita.earth to provide feedback on reversal risk analysis and Buffer Pool creation.
Once a methodology curator has submitted a new version of the methodology, the expert panel have two weeks to read and review the draft version. They will submit comments in line each methodology section. Experts and the curator can all see and respond to each others comments, and will receive a daily notification if there is new feedback to discuss. Experts must refer to the OCP Methodology Requirements, as well as their own expertise and experience, to ensure high quality methodologies.
OCP Methodology RequirementsAfter the two week feedback round, the curator will finish responding to all comments and work on the next iteration of the methodology. Once they submit the next version, another two week feedback round will begin.
The goal of the expert panel is to reach consensus on whether the methodology meets the Voting Criteria.
VOTING CRITERIA
Does this methodology employ conservative and accurate calculations, grounded in the latest scientific data, to ensure that the mitigation activity is not overestimated?
If a project developer complied with this methodology, would each carbon credit produced by the project represent one tonne of CO2e avoided or removed, considering baseline assumptions, additionality evidence, leakage treatment, uncertainty, and monitoring provisions?
If the answer is no, then what prevents this?
After multiple rounds of feedback, the Voting Experts will indicate when the methodology is ready for public commentary by toggling the 'Ready for Public Commentary' option in the action panel. This can only be done during a feedback round. Marking 'Ready for Public Commentary' is not indicative of a vote - there is a separate final voting round.
If >80% of Voting Experts have marked 'Ready for Public Commentary' at the end of a feedback round, public commentary will commence.
DISCLAIMER: All methodologies are grounded in the latest scientific advancements and carbon market best practices. Both of these are evolving rapidly and will progress and improve as time goes by. On the OCP, we run ad-hoc and annual audits on all methodologies and projects, which includes consultations with industry experts to ensure all work operates with the most up-to-date science and data (see more here). While previous versions will remain publicly available for transparency and the ability to track scientific and market developments, only the most recent version should be used for project development. The Expert Panel, and other stakeholders, can only operate using knowledge and research available at the time which may lead to uncertainties or knowledge gaps, and this should be considered when assessing rapidly evolving sectors or previous versions of methodologies or projects.
Public Commentary
During Public Commentary, the Methodology will be publicly available on the OCP for anyone to read and submit comments on. All comments and responses will be published alongside the methodology.
Public Commentary runs for 30 days.
View Open Methodology Public Commentaries.
Final Feedback and Vote
After Public Commentary has concluded, the Methodology Curator will respond to all commentary, and then submit this file along with the v1.0 Candidate version for final feedback and voting.
During the final feedback round, there is no time limit as the expert panel reviews the v1.0 Candidate and submits feedback, similar to previous rounds. The Curator will be able to update the v1.0 Candidate, and will track changes in the Updates field. Experts will be notified when the methodology has been updated, even if they have already submitted their vote.
The Voting Experts will select whether to Approve or Reject the methodology based on the Voting Criteria. Experts can also Abstain, which removes their vote from the calculation. Voting Experts can change their vote up until the last Voting Expert submits their vote, which finalizes all votes.
Following expert panel approval, the OCP Advisory Board retains veto authority: it may withdraw or suspend a methodology that the expert panel has approved, but may not approve a methodology the expert panel has not passed. This authority is binding on OCP and cannot be overridden by OSE management. See the OCP Board page for full details on Advisory Board authority.
VOTING CRITERIA
Does this methodology employ conservative and accurate calculations, grounded in the latest scientific data, to ensure that the mitigation activity is not overestimated?
If a project developer complied with this methodology, would each carbon credit produced by the project represent one tonne of CO2e avoided or removed, considering baseline assumptions, additionality evidence, leakage treatment, uncertainty, and monitoring provisions?
Once all Voting Experts have submitted their vote, the decision is calculated:
If >=80% of Voting Experts (excluding those who selected to Abstain) vote to 'Approve and Publish', the methodology will be approved.
If <80% of Voting Experts (excluding those who selected to Abstain) vote to 'Approve and Publish', the methodology will not be approved. Rejected methodologies will not be available to use on the OCP, although some information and the feedback will be available to view as we believe this is critical information for the market.
Examples:
8 Voting Experts: 1 Abstain, 2 Do Not Approve, 5 Approve = 5/7 = 71% = Not Approved
6 Voting Experts: 1 Abstain, 1 Do Not Approve, 4 Approve = 4/5 = 80% = Approved
OCP Advisory Board Veto
The OCP Advisory Board serves as the final authority on methodology integrity questions. It may withdraw or suspend a methodology that the expert panel has approved, but may not approve a methodology the expert panel has not approved by super-majority. Advisory Board decisions on methodology integrity are binding on OCP.
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