Verra and Hedera to Accelerate Digital Transformation of Carbon Markets

WASHINGTON – Verra has announced a new, long-term collaboration with the Hedera Foundation to accelerate the development of next-generation digital tools to enhance the transparency, auditability, and integrity of methodologies and monitoring systems in the carbon markets. This collaboration marks a major milestone in the digital evolution of these markets.

Verra is the first standards body in the global carbon market to integrate with Hedera Guardian, a leading open-source platform powering the digital economy, which is funded by the Hedera Foundation. The integration will enable faster, more automated project processes and lay the foundation for a more scalable, high-integrity carbon market built on trust and transparency.

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"This collaboration represents a significant advancement in Verra’s digitalization strategy, enhancing our ability to deliver more efficient, transparent, and scalable climate action. Integrating Hedera Guardian with the Verra Project Hub represents a meaningful step toward improving the way we serve our stakeholders. I am also excited that the ALLCOT ABC Mangrove Restoration Project is with us on this integration: an important nature-based solution rooted in Africa, a region that is critical to the future of climate finance and climate leadership."

Mandy Rambharos, CEO, Verra

The Hedera Guardian integrates directly with the Verra Project Hub, the standard setter’s online platform that supports streamlined project development, registration, and review processes and that feeds directly into the Verra Registry. This integration offers the following benefits:

• Allows project developers to access updated digitalized methodology information for optimal predictability from project registration to credit issuance
• Enables users to easily manage projects that use digitalized methodologies with additional digital tools that streamline workflows and surface key insights
• Streamlines processes for users to search, analyze, and apply data, while respecting the confidentiality of project proponent submission
• Houses a digital-first user experience to enable the easy integration of all project-related processes, including digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV), which will result in easily accessible data for faster turnarounds of reviews and requests, improving the overall client experience and expediting the issuance process

The collaboration will also pave the way for open-source software contributors to lead the way in digitalizing additional methodologies, with financial incentives of up to $5,000 per methodology provided by the DLT Earth Bounty Program.

Overall, the collaboration will help create a more transparent, verifiable system of record that supports Verra’s broader effort to digitalize the project lifecycle for as many projects as possible. The effort is driven by Hedera’s open-source framework, which empowers the global carbon market community to innovate and scale climate solutions faster and more transparently than ever before.

The collaboration was announced at the site of the ALLCOT Blue Carbon (ABC) Mangrove Restoration Project in Senegal (Verra Project 4653), which is requesting registration with Verra’s VCS Program and its Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards (CCBS) Program. The project uses the digitalized version of VM0033 Methodology for Tidal Wetland and Seagrass Restoration and will be the first project to benefit from the collaboration, which enabled the project to automate the creation and submission of its project design document.

A five-year capital investment from the Hedera Foundation will help to further accelerate Verra’s digitalization efforts, including a commitment to digitalize an additional 20 methodologies this year, helping to grow Hedera Guardian’s library of digitalized and open source methodologies.

"Verra is setting the standard for high-integrity systems and digital innovation in carbon markets and sustainable development. Its focus on streamlining issuance, facilitating transparency, and ensuring environmental integrity through open-source innovation and participation has enabled a new chapter in accessible integrity initiatives, making digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV) scalable for every project and methodology."

Wes Geisenberger, Vice President Sustainability and ESG, Hedera Foundation

"We are delighted to contribute to this collaboration by digitally submitting ALLCOT ABC Mangrove Senegal, one of our flagship projects, to the Verra Project Hub through Hedera Guardian. This collaboration between Verra and Hedera marks a transformative leap forward for the carbon market, empowering projects to 'speak digitally' and enabling stakeholders to gain faster access to transparent, interoperable data, which enhances trust and scales climate action. This is the beginning of a new era where boots on the ground efforts translate seamlessly into digital trust, speed, and global impact."

Alexis Leroy, CEO, ALLCOT

About Verra

Verra is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges. As a mission-driven nonprofit organization, Verra is committed to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve livelihoods, and protect natural resources by working with the private and public sectors. We support climate action and sustainable development with standards programs and tools that credibly, transparently, and robustly assess environmental and social impacts and enable funding for sustaining and scaling up projects that verifiably deliver these benefits.

About Hedera Guardian

The Hedera Guardian is an open-source platform built on Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) that enables the digitalization, verification, and recording of environmental assets like carbon credits. It provides a governance framework for ensuring compliance with methodologies, automating measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) processes, and allowing transparent and auditable tracking of carbon credit lifecycles. The Hedera Guardian ecosystem has created the largest digitalized open-source methodology library in the world.