This manifest aims to illustrate CEEZER’s principles and approach to support the massive scaling of the voluntary carbon market, while ensuring that money flows to where it has the greatest climate impact.

The voluntary carbon market currently includes a myriad of different project types, often based on fundamentally different technologies that are verified by multiple standards based on a variety of quality indicators. Even within the same certification schemes, we see a high variability of quality between different projects when analyzing data from project design and monitoring documents. Together with a predominant role of resellers and middle men, this has led to increased opacity in the market. In this setup, it is difficult for companies to navigate the market which has led to an atmosphere of insecurity and distrust.

The diversity in terms of MRV requirements, avoidance or removal technologies and project set-ups is also reflected in the nature and impact of carbon credits. CEEZER aims to give guided access to the entire voluntary carbon market. CEEZER offers a neutral view on the global landscape, while highlighting quality differences in their impact based on scientific quality indicators. To do so, CEEZER monitors a continuously evolving set of credit properties that determine the quality of carbon credits according to the scientific and climate-impact community.

• We believe that transparency, in-depth data and rigid quality assessments are crucial to use voluntary carbon credits as a fundamental part of a company’s net-zero strategy.
• We follow the scientific community and focus on peer-reviewed material, as well as the current debate in the markets.
• CEEZER integrates different perspectives into a harmonized set of criteria, enabling end-to-end visibility of available carbon credits and their inherent quality.
• CEEZER offers innovative infrastructure for direct and transparent transactions based on these harmonized data points.

We make sure credits fulfill baseline quality

• CEEZER uses globally accepted certification to secure baseline quality and gain comparable information on each project.
• Beyond this basic quality layer, every single project is reviewed before being accepted for trading on the platform.
• We go through an in-depth individual quality screening of the project and we follow a rigid KYC process to establish a clear record of project ownership.
• While we do work with major standards to ensure a first layer of external verification, we also exclude standards where the scientific consensus questions their impact. These include CDM projects or projects certified under the American Carbon Registry.
• Certain project categories have been facing irregularities in the past with respect to structure and/or impact. We do not compromise on project integrity and exclude every project category where scientific analyses found systematic inconsistencies.
• We continuously improve our quality approach by extending data points and sources used to derive reliable, scientifically backed quality points — internally and with partners.

We enable access to new frontier removal tech

CEEZER features pre-certified projects on the platform for removal projects that currently lack a certification methodology. Removal plays a fundamental role to meet net-zero targets and CEEZER aims to facilitate access to removal technologies as soon as they are operative. We check these projects with utmost care to ensure upfront how viable a technology is.

• We facilitate the access to high-end removal tech now, as we build impact optimized portfolios that develop over time towards a higher share of removal.
• CEEZER fosters new and advanced transaction types that help promising removal technologies scale up while allowing buyers to secure sufficient removal supply in the future.
• Our resources help understand the science and technologies behind removal credits and we identify credits that match your individual climate strategy and industry.

We make sure project developers can grow

• We enable direct transactions and cut the middlemen, not the revenue.
• We make sure that project developers can focus on project scaling as our product is aimed at minimizing the supply-side administrative burden.
• Our infrastructure and transaction management helps project developers scale more quickly, find future offtake more easily, and get financial benefits from quality.
• We support project developers in navigating through the certification and quality jungle — support goes where it’s needed.

We create an inclusive carbon movement and democratize multi-stakeholder access

• We build a community around carbon, with science, project developers, buyers and policy makers.
• We work closely with leading institutions (e.g., ETH, IETA) and officially partner with Standards (e.g. Plan Vivo, Puro) to ensure continuous alignment with market leaders on current carbon knowledge
• We share our knowledge with external stakeholders to improve the wider understanding of the voluntary carbon market and spark necessary and relevant debates.

We see our work as a contribution to the global ambition to mitigate climate change. We consider the voluntary carbon market as one necessary component in the wider scheme of facing the climate crisis and aligning with the Paris Agreement. This includes the vision to provide sustainable, long-term value to global climate, biodiversity and social goals.