Validation and Verification

You will sometimes see these two terms used interchangeably.  This is wrong. 

Validation

Validation refers to independent assessment and approval of the methods that we use in our calculations, calculators and project design.  The process of validating calculators has become progressively simpler with time as a consensus has emerged around various credible data sources including those maintained by the UK Government (Defra) and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative.

Verification

Verification refers to the process of assessing that the carbon offset projects offered by carbon management organisations such as co2balance, are real, additional, appropriate and perform as planned.  This process follows on from the validation of the Project Design Document, which sets out the details of a project including location, type of project, funding structure etc.  co2balance has undertaken to ensure that all of its offset projects are approved under the Voluntary Gold Standard or Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) by mid-2009.  Verification reports are undertaken by independent, experienced, international standards organisations.  The verification reports are our clients’ independent confirmation that we have done what said we would.  While co2balance pays for verification reports, the findings are truly independent.  If a project has not performed as expected, the verifiers will tell us so.

The CarbonZero Guarantee

In the event that a project did not perform to expectation, co2balance would make good any shortfall from a contingency reserve built up by only selling 90% of the carbon savings projected to accrue from all our offset projects.