VCM Update — May 2026: Making Forest Carbon Easier to Build and Trust
We're back with this month's edition of VCM Update, Archeda's monthly series where our team tracks the latest developments in the Voluntary Carbon Market.
After a packed few months of updates, May kept the momentum going — and this time, almost all the news was about forest carbon.
Verra and Gold Standard did most of the talking, with four updates that mostly focused on making the market easier to actually work in.
Here's what we're covering:
Verra published final deforestation risk maps for three new jurisdictions, opening the door for more REDD projects to get started under VM0048.
Verra also kicked off a public consultation on extending its Improved Forest Management methodology, VM0045, beyond the United States for the first time.
Verra launched a new FSC label for carbon credits, linking verified carbon accounting with responsible forest management.
And Gold Standard announced it's rebuilding its registry infrastructure with the tech firm Trovio, so its credits can move more smoothly across different platforms.
Let's break it down piece by piece.
Verra Publishes Final Deforestation Risk Maps for Three New Jurisdictions
Background
REDD projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) under Verra's crediting program earn credits by protecting forests that would otherwise be cleared.
To do this credibly, every project needs a baseline, an estimate of how much deforestation would have happened without it, because credits are earned on the gap between that baseline and what actually occurs on the ground.
Under Verra's updated REDD methodology, VM0048, projects can no longer set this baseline on their own. Instead, Verra itself produces deforestation risk maps for each jurisdiction, maps that predict where forest loss is most likely to occur, and uses them to allocate the underlying data each project relies on.
In short, without these maps, projects in a given country simply cannot move forward.
Three New Jurisdictions
On 1 May 2026, Verra released the final deforestation risk maps for three jurisdictions: Colombia, Cambodia, and the Mai Ndombe Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This marks a key step in operationalizing VM0048 and its associated module VMD0055, which covers avoided unplanned deforestation.
With these additions, the number of jurisdictions with available data rises to nine, alongside Peru and five Brazilian states (Acre, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, and Rondônia).
According to Verra, these nine jurisdictions account for a significant share of REDD project activity. The availability of these maps now allows project developers in these countries to request the data they need to set baselines and register their REDD projects under Verra's program.
What's Coming Next
Verra also updated its timetable for upcoming risk maps on the VMD0055 Jurisdictional Data Table. This gives project developers a clearer view of when more jurisdictions will open up.
FYI: Verra's "bands"?
On the Jurisdictional Data Table, each jurisdiction is sorted into a band reflecting how far along its risk maps are:
Band 1: final data ready to use
Bands 2–3: data available or expected soon (~within 6 months)
Bands 4–5: further out
Band 6: prioritization still pending
Jurisdictions move up to a nearer band as their maps progress.
For final (VMD0055-compliant) maps, Guatemala is expected in Q3 2026. Verra notes it still needs to update both the forest cover benchmark maps and the reference datasets to meet the methodology's requirements.
On the provisional (open-access) side, several Band 3 jurisdictions have now been assigned to a dedicated data service provider.
These are expected later in 2026 than originally projected:
Papua New Guinea: Q2/3 2026
Brazil, Amapá: Q4 2026
Brazil, Mato Grosso (Baseline Validity Period 2): Q4 2026
Brazil, Pará (BVP2): Q4 2026
Where Southeast Asia stands
For readers focused on Southeast Asia, the Jurisdictional Data Table gives a clear regional snapshot:
Cambodia is the clear front-runner, now joining the jurisdictions where projects can register, while Papua New Guinea is next in line. The rest of the region remains earlier in the pipeline, with Malaysia, Vietnam, Timor-Leste, and Indonesia still awaiting prioritization.
Notably, Verra singled out Indonesia in the announcement: with no registered or pipeline avoided unplanned deforestation projects, its risk maps are paused, since most of its forest loss is better suited to the forthcoming avoided planned deforestation module.
Why It Matters
Each jurisdiction Verra adds makes VM0048 more usable in practice. As risk map coverage expands, the technical barrier that had kept many projects waiting to set their baselines is gradually being removed. For regions with active REDD pipelines, this is an encouraging sign that new projects under the updated methodology can finally start moving forward.
Verra Opens Consultation on Expanding VM0045 Beyond the United States
Background
VM0045 is one of the methodologies used for Improved Forest Management (IFM), meaning practices that keep more carbon in the forest than usual, like harvesting less often or setting land aside.
As covered in the REDD section above, every carbon project needs a baseline: the picture of what the forest would have done without the project.
So how does VM0045 build it?
Instead of relying on growth models to project how trees would have grown, it draws on national forest inventories, the government datasets where real forest plots are measured and re-measured over time, and statistically matches each project plot to comparable inventory plots elsewhere.
The carbon difference between the project plots and their matched counterparts is what the project is credited for. To date, this has only been possible in the United States, as the methodology depended on the U.S. Forest Service's inventory data.
Consultation on Expanding VM0045
On 12 May 2026, Verra launched a public consultation on a revision to VM0045, which would extend the methodology's use to countries outside the United States. The consultation runs from 12 May to 15 June 2026.
The change is described as a minor revision, and it works by adding a new appendix that sets out criteria for judging whether any country's national forest inventory is suitable for use in the methodology.
Where a national inventory meets these standards, projects in that country could apply VM0045 using their own domestic forest data.
The appendix establishes detailed requirements covering how the inventory is sampled, how often plots are remeasured, which carbon pools are recorded, and how the data can be matched to project sites, with the aim of keeping quality and comparability consistent across different countries.
Alongside the consultation, Verra is having the draft checked by independent technical experts before it's finalized. It also plans to submit the revised version (1.3) to the ICVCM for review. The ICVCM assesses whether carbon-crediting methodologies meet a recognized quality standard.
Why It Matters
Opening VM0045 to national inventories beyond the United States widens the door for IFM projects in countries that maintain strong forest monitoring systems.
Because the methodology rests on observed plot measurements rather than modeled projections, extending it depends heavily on the quality of each country's inventory, which is why much of the revision focuses on setting clear eligibility standards.
For project developers in eligible jurisdictions, this is an early signal that a data-driven IFM approach already established in the U.S. may soon become available in their own forests, though the practical reach will depend on how many national inventories can meet the bar Verra has set.
Verra's New FSC Label Ties Carbon Credits to Responsible Forestry
On 14 May 2026, Verra launched a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label for its carbon credits, known as Verified Carbon Units (VCUs).
The label can be applied to credits that come from projects meeting two conditions at once: they are registered under Verra's VCS Program, and they sit on forest land that already holds FSC forest management certification. In short, it marks credits that satisfy both standards at the same time.
What FSC Brings
If VCS verifies the carbon side of a project, FSC speaks to how the forest itself is managed.
An FSC certification means the forest is run in a way that protects biodiversity, respects the rights and wellbeing of local communities and workers, and remains economically viable.
Until now, the two standards worked separately. A project could be certified by VCS for solid carbon accounting, but that certification alone said nothing about whether the forest was managed responsibly for people and the environment.
The new label brings them together, signaling that a credit is both independently verified for carbon and sourced from a responsibly managed forest.
Archeda View
Forest carbon credits have faced significant scrutiny lately over quality and credibility, so a signal that a credit meets two respected standards at once carries real weight for buyers working to differentiate high-integrity credits.
It also opens a clearer pathway for FSC-certified forest managers to enter the carbon market, potentially channeling more high-integrity supply into a segment that needs it.
For market observers, this aligns with a broader trajectory at Verra toward tightening methodological standards and differentiating projects that can substantiate their quality.
Gold Standard Rebuilds Its Registry Infrastructure for Interoperability
On 13 May 2026, Gold Standard announced a next-generation Impact Registry, built with the climate technology firm Trovio, to modernize how it issues, tracks, and retires its carbon credits.
The upgrade modernizes that underlying infrastructure, with a planned launch in Q4 2026 and existing accounts and credit holdings migrated across without disruption to ownership.
What's Actually Changing
The new platform, called CorTenX, is built on an API-first architecture, meaning other systems can connect to it directly and securely rather than through manual, one-off processes.
It also runs on cryptographically verifiable infrastructure designed to make the record tamper-resistant and to provide a complete chain of custody for each credit.
In practical terms, the registry is being rebuilt so that national registries, exchanges, and marketplaces can plug into it and move credits across platforms while preserving full traceability.
Archeda View
The significance lies in interoperability.
As carbon markets grow more interconnected, including with government-run systems and the crediting mechanism under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, registries that operate in isolation become a bottleneck.
Trovio already provides registry infrastructure for the Australian Government and for the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, so this positions Gold Standard credits to integrate more readily with that wider ecosystem.
The market has been under steady pressure to prove the integrity and traceability of its credits, and tamper-resistant, directly connectable infrastructure addresses a real source of friction. It also signals where market infrastructure is broadly heading.
Closing Thought
If April was about new methodologies arriving, May was about making the ones we already have usable.
The market is slowly fixing the problems that have kept projects stuck: missing baseline data, methodologies limited to certain countries, the difficulty of proving a credit is high quality, and registries that couldn't talk to each other.
For developers, the main barrier has usually been data — without Verra's baselines, a REDD project can't start. Now that Colombia, Cambodia, and Mai Ndombe have it, projects there can finally move. For buyers, the bigger issue is quality, and while FSC doesn't settle that alone, paired with VCS it gives another reliable signal to look for.
These steady progress makes forest carbon easier to build and easier to trust.
That wraps up our May edition. We hope you found it useful!
If there's something you'd like us to cover next, feel free to drop us a note through the form below. We read every comment, and your feedback is what keeps us going.
Stay tuned for the June update!
