C-BIO (Biodiversity credit standards, rated)

Which biodiversity credits are worth buying, judged by the rules of the standard that issues them, not by any single project.
9 standards, scored 1 to 5 on five integrity dimensions.

Full methodology →

Rated on metric rigor and measurability, additionality, like-for-like integrity, permanence and governance, and community and equity. Scores 1 to 5. Market adoption is shown as context and never moves a score.

The standards, rated

Each standard is judged on whether its rules, if followed, produce credits that mean what they claim. Click a row for the dimension-by-dimension reading and real-world adoption to date.

Standard	Type	Metric rigor	Addition- ality	Like-for- like	Permanence & gov.	Community & equity	Composite
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Governance and definitions

Not crediting standards, but the bodies setting shared definitions and high-integrity principles for the market. Shown as context, not scored.

Country policy readiness

A standard needs a host country that recognises the unit. This is C-RISK's carbon-and-biodiversity market-policy reading for all 54 African countries. The dimension is combined; the biodiversity-specific signal sits inside each country's note. Higher is more developed.

Policy	Country	Reading (from C-RISK)
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How Canopy verifies

The market's hardest question is whether the nature outcome is real. Canopy already runs an independent satellite measurement series for every protected area it tracks, which is the evidence layer a credit claim can be checked against.

Forest - canopy loss and DIST-ALERT disturbance against a per-site baseline.
Vegetation - NDVI condition against the site's own seasonal band.
Water - surface-water extent and seasonal anomalies.
Fire - active fire and burned area against week-of-year climatology.
Nightlights - human pressure and encroachment proxy.

In this release C-BIO rates the standards. As biodiversity-credit projects reach African sites Canopy already monitors, each project rating will carry its own measured series, so a claimed uplift can be read against what the satellites show on the ground. That independent check is the difference between a rating built on documents and one built on evidence. See the PACE protected-area pages for the measurement series in action.