Registry rules of use

The various project statuses and the documents required at each stage are outlined below:

• Draft - When the project developer has started to enter the project details on the registry but not submitted it. (Details entered at this stage do not appear on the public registry).
• Under development - The project developer has entered the project details and uploaded the draft carbon calculations and a map. The project is now ‘registered’ and will appear on the public view.
• Validated - The project has been validated and documents have been uploaded: the final project design document, map, carbon calculations and validation statement (which will be public), and group agreement and landowner/tenant commitment statement (which will remain private) if a group. Depending on the project setup, the project developer may also need to upload a document to show they own the right to the carbon units (a proof of right) or that they have the right to represent the landowner in the registry (a communications agreement). Standard content for these agreements is available from S&P Global or Scottish Forestry.
• Verified - The project has undertaken a verification and the documents have been uploaded: a project progress report, monitoring report and a valid verification statement for that period.
• Not delivered - A project which has been validated, but for some reason is not verified, will be marked 'not delivered'

It is free to register a project as 'under development'. 

All projects will be shown on the public view of the UK Land Carbon Registry once they move from ‘draft’ to the ‘under development’ stage. 

Project documentation will be public unless indicated otherwise above.

The registry includes two types of carbon units which have different purposes:

Pending Issuance Units: These units demonstrate the quantity (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) of potential future sequestration. Pending Issuance Units will help to keep track of up-front sales/purchases (by assigning them to a buyer or transferring them to a buyer's account) but they cannot be used/retired/reported. Pending Issuance Units are not guaranteed.

Woodland/Peatland Carbon Units: When a project is verified, Pending Issuance Units which have been confirmed as sequestered will be converted to Woodland Carbon Units. These units can be considered as full carbon credits and, as such, can be used/retired/reported. Woodland Carbon Units/ Peatland Carbon Units are guaranteed.

Pending Issuance Units and Woodland Carbon Units only exist in the UK Land Carbon Registry. Ownership can only be transferred between registry account holders. 

Units are assigned a 'vintage' which is the time period in which they are anticipated to be delivered (Pending Issuance Units) or were actually delivered (Woodland Carbon Units). 

Each unit is allocated a unique serial number. 

See our information on how Pending Issuance Units and Woodland Carbon Units can be used and on reporting your emissions and climate action. 

All units, Pending Issuance Units and Woodland Carbon Units, will be visible on the public view of the UK Land Carbon Registry.

Once a project is validated, Pending Issuance Units will be listed, in time periods called vintages or monitoring periods (see below), for the lifetime of the project. For groups of projects, units can be issued to each project within the group or to the groups as a whole if the carbon is to be sold collectively. In exceptional circumstances, Pending Issuance Units will not be issued. See 2.6 Registry and avoidance of double-counting.

Vintages are determined by the monitoring and verification schedule set out in Woodland Carbon Code guidance. The first vintage is five years from the carbon project start date (last date of planting) and subsequent vintages are in 10-yearly periods. There are special arrangements for older projects whose first verification is not five years after the start date.

Scottish Forestry owns an account called ‘WCC PIU Buffer’ and the buffer contribution for each project will be allocated to this account. The Pending Issuance Unit buffer cannot be claimed from. It simply indicates the potential size of the standard’s buffer account once these units are converted to verified units.

For example, a 100-year project, which will remove 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where the risk assessment has indicated 20% of units should be allocated to the buffer, might list Pending Issuance Units as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Allocation of units to vintages for a project which will remove 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

See registry fees for the cost to list Pending Issuance Units and the Woodland Carbon Code/ Peatland Code Levy. It is free to issue buffer units.

All issuances will be shown on the public view of the UK Land Carbon Registry. 

Pending Issuance Units cannot be sold to individuals.

This section refers to either Pending Issuance Units or verified Woodland Carbon Units. Sales of carbon units are conducted between the parties on a one-to-one basis but, once agreed, the project developer must make clear who the buyer is. This can be done in one of two ways:

• By assigning units to the buyer within the project developer's account. Assignment is a way of demonstrating the sale of a unit without requiring the buyer to have an account on the UK Land Carbon Registry, but it means the buyer cannot choose when to retire or add further comment once the credit is verified.
• By transferring units to the buyer's account. This gives the buyer more flexibility to retire the unit once it's verified. The buyer can retire units at a time which matches their reporting requirements, adding a comment to clarify how they have been used.

Both seller and buyer have to agree to the transfer before it can take place.

There is no cost to assign or transfer units to a buyer. All holdings will be shown on the public view of the UK Land Carbon Registry.

When a project is verified at the end of a period/vintage, the number of Pending Issuance Units verified in the period / vintage will automatically be converted to verified Woodland Carbon Units once checks on monitoring and verification reports are completed. This will occur both for Pending Issuance Units originally allocated to the project (which may have already been sold on) as well as those allocated to the Woodland Carbon Code Pending Issuance Units buffer account. Units issued as Pending Issuance Units will retain the same serial numbers as Woodland Carbon Units. Pending Issuance Units which are already assigned to a buyer will be automatically retired.

This principle is fine where the actual verification indicates the same number of units as the prediction. However, an approach for dealing with instances where the actual verification differs from the prediction is outlined below and is in line with the way most existing carbon markets would operate if a project over or under delivers within a given vintage.

Bear in mind that while the prediction / allocation of Pending Issuance Units in Woodland Carbon Code projects is conservative, it is possible that actual sequestration is less than predicted. In this case, Pending Issuance Units will be marked 'not delivered'.

For a given vintage, if verification confirms more units were delivered than allocated to Pending Issuance Units: In proportion, the additional units are allocated to the project and the Woodland Carbon Unit buffer (Table 2).

Table 2: Conversion of Pending Issuance Units to Woodland Carbon Units in the case of over delivery

If verification confirms fewer units were delivered than allocated to Pending Issuance Units: In proportion, the fewer units are allocated to the project and the Woodland Carbon Unit buffer. Pending Issuance Units not delivered are marked 'not delivered' (Table 3).

Table 3: Conversion of Pending Issuance Units to Woodland Carbon Units in the case of under delivery

Contracts between buyer and seller might need to be flexible about the amount delivered, but not the timing. For example:

• Guaranteed (I’ll give you 100 units in year x. If it’s not from my project, I’ll give you some from another Woodland Carbon Code/other project) or
• Unit-contingent (I’ll give you about 100 units in year x +/- y%. Pay for what I deliver).

See registry fees for the cost to convert Pending Issuance Units to Woodland Carbon Units/ Peatland Carbon Units or to issue new Woodland Carbon Units. It is free to convert or issue further buffer units.

Pending Issuance Units shall be verified by the last date of a vintage period, unless there are extenuating circumstances for a delay which should be agreed with Scottish Forestry. Extensions might be granted if, for example:

• You demonstrate you’ve applied to the verifying bodies in good time, but they are unable to process your validation before the deadline
• A verification suggests corrective actions, but they cannot be completed before the deadline due to weather/time of year etc.
• Projects which are geographically close are due to be verified in consecutive years and you would like to verify the two projects together

If a project developer has an agreed extension, they must upload a signed verification extension approval to the registry. Carbon units (both Pending Issuance Units and Woodland Carbon Units) can be transferred as normal.

If you do not verify by the last date of the vintage period or any agreed extension:

• All remaining Pending Issuance Units for the duration of the project are cancelled (those owned by the project, those sold and buffer units)
• Any unsold Woodland Carbon Units are automatically retired
• Woodland Carbon Units (sold and buffer) from previous vintages remain valid
• The project remains in the system and is marked ‘discontinued’
• No further units can be issued at any time.
• It is still possible for existing buyers to sell on or retire Woodland Carbon Units held from previous vintages.

It's possible for a project developer to withdraw from the Woodland Carbon Code and the registry before the end of the project duration if all sold units have been delivered as verified Woodland Carbon Units and only unsold Pending Issuance Units remain. 

In this case, all Woodland Carbon Units will remain valid (both for the project and the buffer) and Pending Issuance Units (unsold and buffer) will be cancelled. Future management must maintain the level of carbon stock that has been sold.

There is no cost to cancel Pending Issuance Units.

Only verified Woodland Carbon Units can be used or reported to help compensate for a company’s or individual’s emissions. Read more at 2.7 carbon statements and reporting.

The process for representing the ‘use’ of a verified Woodland Carbon Unit in the registry is by ‘retiring’ (putting beyond use) the units you wish to use and leaving a retirement remark as desired (e.g. ‘Retired in 2020 as compensation for 500 tCO2e of our 2019 emissions as detailed in our Annual Environmental Report 2019’).

All retirements will be shown on the public view of the UK Land Carbon Registry. There is no cost to retire Woodland/Peatland Carbon Units.

S&P Global's request for information platform is an additional avenue to liquidate credits. It is an anonymous online platform for the over-the-counter environmental credits market that displays credits available for sale. 

The platform also allows buyers to display their interest in purchasing credits, including indicative quantities and prices. These credits are searchable and viewable by registered participants. 

Upon expressing an interest in any credits for sale or wanted, the buyer or seller can send an expression of interest to the counterparty. Introduction through the platform then enables the two parties to start discussions on the terms of a potential transaction.

The seller decides the price of credits and S&P Global does not provide any information / consultation.

There is no fee to use the platform which is accessible by anyone with an S&P Global account (for UK Land Carbon Registry or other registries on the S&P Global platform).

Project developers

If a project developer wishes to exit the business, it is possible to transfer projects to another project developer or management organisation, sell or retire carbon units then close their account.

However, if a project developer abandons its account(s) with the UK Land Carbon Registry without arrangements for the ongoing management of units by another organisation (or its agreement with S&P Global is otherwise terminated) then:

• All Pending Issuance Units listed for that project developer will be cancelled regardless of which account holders may be holding the Pending Issuance Units at the time of cancellation
• Any Woodland Carbon Units still held by the project developer will be transferred to a suspension account. If resolution of that account is not corrected within five years, those credits will be retired
• Any Woodland Carbon Units already received by a buyer (in a sub-account or a corporate end user account) will remain valid in the buyer’s account
• A buyer of Woodland Carbon Units who holds their units in a sub-account of the closed project developer account can have their account converted into a corporate end user master account at no cost.

Buyers

If a corporate end user or trading organisation is acquired by another organisation, then it is possible to transfer units to the purchasing company’s account.

However, if a corporate end user or trader who holds Pending Issuance Units or Woodland Carbon Units abandons its account(s) with the UK Land Carbon Registry without arrangements for the ongoing management of its units (or its agreement with S&P Global is otherwise terminated), all Pending Issuance Units or Woodland Carbon Units listed for that account holder will be put on hold until further instruction is received from the liquidator or administrator. If no instruction is received within five years, then any remaining Pending Issuance Units will be cancelled and Woodland Carbon Units in the account will be retired.