Chubb ACCU Review Findings

Today, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen released a formal response to the Chubb Independent Australian Carbon Credit Review, where 16 recommendations were made.

The review found the ACCU system to be “essentially sound”, with the recommendations aimed toward increasing transparency which would lend to public confidence. While the scheme’s integrity has been under fire for over 12 months, the review panel stated that the ACCU scheme was ‘fundamentally well designed when introduced’ over a decade ago. 

Ecovantage provided a formal consultation response to the CER, of which many recommendations found are in alignment. 

An outcome proving the integrity of the scheme is positive for the future direction of Australia’s carbon credit program, from new project development to offset market growth and sustained reliability.  

Of the 16 recommendations, the highlights are as follows: 

1. A mechanism has been proposed to provide further assurance of both additionality and conservativity. The first suggestion for the mechanism is a mandatory cancellation of a percentage of credits generated under the scheme. However, it has been noted that this may decrease liquidity and therefore risk upward pricing pressure. 
2. A 20% minimum ACCU contribution for Climate Active Certification was not supported, as it is inconsistent with the program’s inherent flexibility, and would likely deem the program too cost prohibitive for some organisations. 
3. Carbon Service Providers and Carbon Market Advisors should be both accredited and regulated to increase market confidence. 
4. Procedures should be developed to establish clear co-benefit guidelines. This would increase public trust and quantification of co-benefits.  
5. The Carbon Abatement Integrity Committee (CAIC) should be established to assure method integrity. 
6. Establish an Expression of Interest (EOI) pathway for new method development, to increase accessibility. All new methods should be approved by the CAIC in conjunction with the Offsets Integrity Standards (OIC) and ACCU scheme guidelines. 
7. Data should be made publicly available by default while maintaining commercial-in-confidence information. This would lend to transparency and therefore public trust. 
8. Separation of the Scheme Assurer, Scheme Regulator, and related policy development, as opposed to being one entity. It was stressed that all bodies must be well-resourced for the scheme to function. 
9. No new project registrations should be allowed under the Avoided Deforestation method, though new methods incentivising the maintenance of native vegetation that may become a forest should be considered. 
10. Projects requiring Native Title approval may not gain conditional project approval pending Native Title approval. 

Further Reading