Carbon Credit Rating Agencies and What Ratings Mean

Updated 2026-11-02 · 3 min read · By the akar.earth specialist team

Carbon credit ratings explained: what agencies such as BeZero, Sylvera and Calyx Global assess, how ratings move price, and what Indonesian projects score.

Carbon credit rating agencies assess how likely a credit is to deliver the tonne of climate benefit it claims. They score risks such as weak additionality, inflated baselines, leakage and reversal, and their ratings now shape which credits buyers pick and what they pay.

Ratings are independent of the standards that certify credits. A Verra or Gold Standard credit can earn a high or a low rating depending on the project. Ratings complement, rather than replace, the ICVCM CCP label, which assesses programmes and methodologies. Read the CCP label.

The main agencies

Scales and methods change. Check each agency’s current methodology before comparing ratings. Some ratings are public; full reports often need a subscription.

What ratings assess

Most agencies look at similar risk factors, weighted differently:

• Additionality. Would the project have happened anyway? Read additionality.
• Baseline and over-crediting. Is the baseline realistic? Read baseline setting.
• Leakage. Are displaced emissions counted? Read leakage accounting.
• Permanence. How likely is a reversal, and is it covered? Read permanence and reversals.
• Policy and host country risk. Double counting, legal changes, authorisation.
• Co-benefits and safeguards, for some agencies.

How ratings move price

BeZero’s carbon price analysis shows prices rising about 40% between each rating band. An Indonesian peatlands project saw credit prices nearly double after a one-band upgrade from ‘A’ to ‘AA’ in February 2025.

Ratings do not erase market discounts. Indonesian credits still trade at a fraction of the real cost of abatement, with regulatory uncertainty, high domestic abatement costs and restrictive compliance eligibility given as causes. Read carbon credit pricing.

Indonesia and Southeast Asia

BeZero has rated 11 ex-post Indonesian projects. Their average rating is ‘A’, compared with ‘B’ as the most common nature-based rating elsewhere. Of 62 avoided deforestation and peatland projects BeZero rated globally, the most common rating is ‘BB’.

Context matters. Southeast Asia issued 129 million nature-based credits under VCS and Gold Standard to April 2025, about 22% of global nature-based issuance. Indonesia accounted for 59.3% of regional issuance, mostly REDD+. 43 million credits remained available, about 19% of global available supply. Read Southeast Asia NbS supply.

How a project can improve its rating step by step

1. Conservative baseline. Use the most defensible data, ideally consistent with jurisdictional data.
2. Strong additionality evidence. Third-party documentation, not assertion.
3. Leakage management with monitoring and livelihood programmes.
4. Permanence safeguards. Fire management, secure tenure, long-term funding.
5. Transparent data. Make spatial files, plot data and monitoring reports available to raters.
6. Engage early. Ex-ante ratings help pre-issuance projects raise finance and set offtake prices.

How buyers use ratings in practice

Corporate buyers increasingly set minimum ratings in procurement policies, for example accepting only credits at or above a chosen band. Some combine a minimum rating with a CCP label requirement. Investors use ex-ante ratings to price forward offtake and prepayment deals. Ratings also inform portfolio decisions, such as the share of removals versus avoidance credits.

For sellers, this means ratings affect market access, not just price. A project below a buyer’s minimum band may be excluded entirely. Engaging a rater early, and fixing weak points before issuance, can open buyer segments that would otherwise be closed.

Ratings and the CCP label

The ICVCM label and ratings answer different questions. A CCP label needs a CCP-Approved methodology used under a CCP-Eligible programme. It says the rules meet a threshold. A rating says how well a specific project applied those rules. Many buyers now look for both.

Limits of ratings

Ratings are opinions based on available evidence. They can lag behind events on the ground, such as a new fire or a legal change. Treat them as one input among several, alongside your own review of documents and satellite data.

Pitfalls for buyers

• Treating a rating as a guarantee.
• Comparing ratings across agencies without understanding their scales.
• Ignoring the date of the rating. Ratings change as new evidence appears.
• Relying on ratings alone without project-level due diligence.

Read carbon project due diligence for buyers. Our due diligence service reviews projects through the same lenses raters use. See the standards hub.