CNaught - Science-based strategy to carbon credits

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A Complete, Carbon Credit Strategy

Not all carbon credits are created equal. In a market where only about 15% of carbon credits are high quality, it is critical that buyers purchase a diversified portfolio of high-integrity carbon credits to maximize impact and minimize risk. However, most sustainability teams are already stretched thin and don’t have the time, resources, or expertise to dedicate to project sourcing and portfolio curation.

At CNaught, our strategy is built to provide our customers ease and confidence. We perform rigorous due diligence and deliver ready-to-purchase portfolios aligned with the leading climate science. We also build solutions that meet your specific certification requirements like The Climate Label, Australia’s Climate Active, or Canada’s Zero Carbon Building Performance Standard, or that align with your broader sustainability goals. We also continuously monitor each project and provide easy-to-use tools that make it easy to track and confidently share your progress.

No more comparing individual projects or juggling multiple vendors. We do the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on driving change within your business.

Curated, High-Integrity Portfolios

Experts across science and industry agree that buyers should consider a portfolio approach when purchasing carbon credits. The Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting, widely regarded as “best practices” in the field and endorsed by the World Economic Forum, recommend diversification across project types, while transitioning to removals with long-term storage over time.

Source: Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting

CNaught’s portfolio approach has several key advantages:

Mitigate Risk

Like any market, there is risk involved in the VCM. Reduce risk by investing across several projects so that you’re not dependent on one specific project’s outcome or even one project type.

Diversify Impact

Support projects across various project types and geographies to influence multiple beyond carbon factors like community, biodiversity, and ecosystem benefits.

Balance Impact & Affordability

Stick to your budget by creating the right mix of differently priced projects for a price per tonne that works for you.

Build a Sustainable Future

Support a range of project technologies to reduce the need for avoided emissions projects while helping novel technologies get to scale, building the groundwork for a future where we can be investing only in long-term carbon removal projects.

See our blogpost to learn more.

Diversified Project Categories

CNaught’s portfolios are made up of four different categories of project types, building on the paradigm laid out in the Oxford Principles. Each category has its own strengths and weaknesses and our portfolios are designed to balance them.
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The categories of projects vary across two main axes: whether they avoid emissions vs. remove emissions and whether they’re technology-based vs. nature-based.
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CNaught portfolios are currently a blend of categories I, II, IV, and V as category III projects start to scale. Over time, the portfolio allocations will shift increasingly toward removals, in line with best practices.

See Project Categories for more information.

Rigorous Project-level Diligence

To ensure that we are offering only diversified portfolios made up of high-integrity carbon credits to our customers, we put each individual project through our 7-step diligence process. Only projects that meet our integrity criteria are eligible to be included in our portfolios.

Aligned with expert recommendations from Stockholm Environment Institute and GHG Management Institute’s Offset Guide, our process combines a thorough internal assessment with independent third-party evaluations from leading ratings agencies. We are one of the only companies to leverage ratings from all four top agencies - BeZero, Calyx Global, Renoster, and Sylvera - to ensure the most comprehensive quality assessment. We also closely evaluate each project across four quality pillars - additionality, over-crediting, durability, and double counting.

In fact, we stand behind our diligence process with the CNaught Guarantee. Every purchase includes ongoing project monitoring and added protection against project failure, at no additional cost.

See our detailed Due Diligence Process for more information.

Continuous Portfolio Security

The carbon credit space moves fast, and we stay on top of it so that you don’t have to.

Not only do we continuously monitor the performance of projects we support, but we offer the CNaught Guarantee with every purchase, to give you peace of mind. We proactively seek out new data and insights, constantly re-evaluating projects to protect your investments and maximize our impact. The CNaught Guarantee also protects against project failure - if a project that you bought credits from is canceled or suspended for over a year by a registry due to a risk that our diligence failed to address, we’ll replace those credits with another one of our high-integrity portfolios, at no additional cost.

We also stay on top of the market at a macro level, tracking developments from governance bodies such as the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) as well as updates to project methodologies and new research on project effectiveness.

Carbon Management Tools

Once you’ve purchased your portfolio, it’s important to share your progress - whether to meet regulatory requirements like California’s AB1305 disclosure act or to drive business value by communicating your impact to customers and employees. Being transparent about your use of high-quality carbon credits helps build trust and demonstrates leadership by encouraging broader, credible participation in climate action. Manage all your carbon credit purchases, even those made outside of CNaught, with our product dashboard and easily showcase your climate progress to customers, employees, and stakeholders.

Our built-in reporting tools make it easy to meet both voluntary or mandatory requirements, including AB1305 or CDP. Plus, our AI-powered marketing tools make it easy to share your story with your brand identity.

Our Strategy