Vida CarbonGuide

Education only. We sell no credits and give no investment advice.

Free tool · runs in your browser

Check a carbon credit before you pay for it

Answer nine questions about a credit or offset you are considering. You get a plain verdict and a list of the red flags we would want explained before any money changes hands.

Your answers stay on this page. Nothing is sent or saved.

The quality checklist

01Which registry issued the credit?

The registry is the database that issues each credit a serial number and records when it is retired.

02What kind of project is it?
03What is the vintage year?

The vintage is the year the emission cut or removal happened. It is printed on the credit record.

04Has the seller shown why the project needed carbon money?

This is additionality: proof that the cuts would not have happened anyway.

05If carbon is stored in trees or soil, is it protected against reversal?

Look for a buffer pool contribution and a monitoring period in the project documents.

06Has an independent auditor verified the credits?
07How will the credits be retired?

Retiring a credit takes it out of circulation so nobody else can claim it.

08What price per tonne are you being asked to pay?

One credit usually equals one tonne of CO₂ or its equivalent. Enter the price in US dollars.

09How is it being sold to you?

If someone calls it an investment, stop

People who buy carbon credits to offset their footprint retire them and never see them again. A credit offered to you as something that will grow in value, or that a broker will sell on for you later, is the shape of a scam regulators have warned about for years.

Read the scams guide

Start with the basics

  1. How carbon markets work, compliance and voluntary

    A plain explanation of carbon markets: how government cap-and-trade systems differ from the voluntary credit market, who buys what, and why prices vary so much.

    5 min

  2. What a carbon credit is and how it gets retired

    What one carbon credit represents, how a project earns credits from design to issuance, what retirement means and how to check a retirement on a public registry.

    4 min

  3. How to judge carbon credit quality

    How to tell a stronger carbon credit from a weak one: the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles, what registries do, additionality, permanence, over-crediting and ratings.

    4 min

  4. Cookstove, rice and forest projects explained

    How cookstove, rice methane and forest carbon projects earn credits: what each measures, where over-crediting creeps in and what to ask.

    5 min

  5. Carbon credit investment scams and how to spot them

    How carbon credit investment scams work, the warning signs the FCA, CFTC and SEC describe, and what to do if you have been approached or have paid.

    4 min

  6. A small business's first emissions inventory

    A first greenhouse gas inventory for a small business: scopes 1, 2 and 3 explained, the data to collect, emission factors and a worked example.

    4 min

  7. The UN Sustainable Development Goals and carbon projects

    What the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals are, how carbon projects claim SDG benefits, which standards check those claims and how to read SDG icons on an offset.

    4 min

Common questions

Can a carbon credit be a good investment?

Treat any pitch that sells carbon credits as an investment with promised returns as a warning sign. Regulators including the UK Financial Conduct Authority have described this as a common scam pattern, and in the US the CFTC and SEC have brought fraud cases involving carbon credits. People who buy credits to offset emissions retire them; they do not expect to sell them later at a profit.

What makes a carbon credit high quality?

A credible credit comes from a recognized registry, represents emission cuts or removals that would not have happened anyway, is verified by an independent auditor, is protected against reversal where nature is involved, and is retired in your name with a serial number you can look up yourself.

Does this checklist rate specific projects or sellers?

No. The checklist works from your own answers and runs entirely in your browser. It does not look anything up, store your answers or rate any named project, registry or seller.

Who runs Vida Carbon Guide?

An independent editorial team that writes plain-language guides about carbon markets. The site was relaunched in 2026, has no connection to earlier owners of the domain and sells nothing.

This site was relaunched in 2026 under new, independent management and has no connection to earlier owners of the domain.