Corporate Carbon Credits: Systems, Realities & the Path to Accountability 

Summary

With 60% of Forbes 2000 companies holding net-zero pledges and a voluntary carbon market valued at $4 billion in 2024, carbon credits have evolved from a niche ESG instrument to the cornerstone of corporate climate strategy. Yet the governance infrastructure underpinning this expansion remains dangerously lagged - evidenced most starkly by the nine years of international negotiations required to finalise country-to-country trading rules at COP29 in November 2024.

This presentation interrogates the mechanics and integrity of both compliance-based and voluntary carbon markets (VCMs), with a critical focus on nature-based solutions. Drawing on recent empirical investigations, it examines the systemic vulnerabilities that undermine credit validity: additionality failures driven by phantom deforestation threats featuring an average overstatement of 400%; permanence risks from wildfire, pest infestations, and shifting political mandates; and pervasive leakage that negates claimed carbon benefits. 

The presentation further analyses the Indian context, specifically the Green Credit Program's contested equivalence standard and the regulatory risk of double-counting under the parallel Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) framework.

About the presenter: 

Vivek Jetpariya is a foremost practitioner at the complex intersection of large-scale ecological restoration, climate finance, and nature-based solutions. Currently with CEF Group, he oversees expansive eco-restoration initiatives, architecting and leading the end-to-end execution of massive afforestation programs for major public sector undertakings across the most demanding industrial landscapes.

Prior to spearheading large-scale corporate afforestation and GCP-aligned carbon asset development at CEF Group, his hands-on field experience spanned managing multi-crore ecological restoration portfolios at CSRBOX, modeling wetland soil organic carbon for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and structuring watershed management strategies with the Karnataka State Forest Academy.

Grounded by a B.Sc. Honors in Agriculture and a Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Vivek brings a rigorous, evidence-based lens to global climate initiatives, supported by strategic certifications from the FAO (Sustainable Financing of Forest & Landscape Restoration), the Boston Consulting Group (Climate & Sustainability), and the Project Institute (Six Sigma: Green Belt). He actively challenges industry greenwashing by advocating for transparent unit economics, geospatial verification, and data-driven post-restoration measures, ensuring that long-term biodiversity and ecological survival are prioritized over short-term offset metrics.