Start with the intended use, identify the exact project and credit population, separate source statements from interpretation, identify missing evidence, and define which changes would reopen the decision.
1. What decision is the evidence supposed to support?
A procurement team deciding whether to proceed needs a different review from an adviser explaining an existing position. Write the decision as a question with a timeframe: which evidence is needed before a proposed purchase can go to committee? This gives the reviewer a boundary and gives the decision-maker a usable result. A broad request to tell us whether a project is good leaves too much unstated.
2. Which project and credits are actually in scope?
Bind the review to identifiers, programme, methodology, relevant vintages and the position described by the customer. A developer name or a project name alone may be insufficient to connect a disclosure to the credits being considered. Record unresolved matches explicitly. Do not quietly treat two similar names as the same project, or assume that a statement about a whole project applies to every credit or buyer.
3. What does each source establish?
Keep a source statement beside its reference and qualification. An expected delivery date is a statement about an outlook. It is not, by itself, an agreed delivery obligation. A recorded cancellation is not automatically an established loss. ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles address credit integrity through criteria including additionality, permanence and no double counting. Those criteria are useful context; they do not answer every commercial or contractual question in a purchase review.
4. What remains unknown?
Missing allocation evidence, an inaccessible document and a source that was searched without a result are different conditions. Name them separately. An absence of relevant records in a bounded search does not demonstrate that no adverse event occurred. The practical output is a short list of questions, the evidence that would settle each one, and who is best placed to obtain it.
5. What would make you revisit the assessment?
Agree the developments worth checking again: a new disclosure, a changed delivery expectation, a programme decision or a relevant update supplied by the counterparty. Define a review period and responsible reader. Monitoring has a purpose when it can change a question, an escalation or a decision; a large volume of alerts is not a substitute for that connection.
What to take into the review
A good assessment makes its conclusion easier to challenge and check. It should leave a buyer knowing what is supported, what is missing and what to ask next.
Sources and basis
ICVCM: Core Carbon Principles ↗
Primary reference for the integrity criteria mentioned above. The five-question review framework is Kyroq’s proposed approach, not an ICVCM requirement.
Published by Kyroq. Read our approach and scope.