Based on the draft VM0044 v2.0 released for consultation on 15 July 2026. Verra’s consultation closes 17 August 2026, and the provisions cited here may change before the final version is published.
Verra’s revision to VM0044 doesn’t just update a few technical parameters, it changes what biochar credits are as a market asset. Under V1.2, a project that met the applicability conditions cleared a standardized positive list automatically, then had to pass an investment analysis. Under V2.0 the positive list is gone and a common practice test is added, so eligibility has to be argued project by project. That’s a real shift, and it changes how developers approach origination, not just compliance.
A project-specific additionality test replaces the positive list. Investment analysis under VCS tool VT0008 is mandatory, and V2.0 requires developers to break out three revenue streams explicitly: energy sales, material sales, and waste management or tipping fees. A common practice analysis then follows, and that is the harder gate. A project can clear the investment test and still fail because biochar production is already established in its market. Existing facilities sat outside the methodology entirely under V1.2, so this is the first route in for them rather than a route closing.
That’s where the advisory and project finance teams become useful. Running proper stress tests on biochar assets, factoring in feedstock price swings, off-take terms and IRR sensitivity, is no longer paperwork. That rigour is what gets a project through validation under the new rules instead of stalling there.
V2.0 unlocks more feedstocks. It adds a dedicated invasive terrestrial species category with safeguards on containment and regrowth, allows biomass previously combusted for energy to qualify under conditions, and permits imported feedstock from countries in the same or a higher World Bank income group, where V1.2 banned imports outright. It also prescribes how key parameters are measured: the hydrogen-to-organic-carbon ratio and moisture content must now be determined by an accredited laboratory for each production lot. Transport emissions were already captured under V1.2 as leakage; V2.0 reclassifies feedstock transport as project emissions and adds calculation procedures. The storage rules are genuinely new. Biochar must be held in line with EBC or WBC guidelines before end use, and eligible transport is restricted to rail, marine, trucks and motorbikes.
The change that moves money is permanence. Under V1.2 the permanence factor came from feedstock and production-type default tables, with 0.56 applied where pyrolysis temperature was unknown. Under V2.0 it is a linear function of the measured H:Corg of each production lot and the mean annual soil temperature where the biochar is applied, using the Woolf et al. (2021) regression. The defaults run from 0.94 in soils below 7.5°C to 0.54 above 22.5°C. The same biochar is worth close to twice as much applied in a cool climate as a hot one, and H:Corg stops being a pass/fail gate and becomes a multiplier on volume. Process control and end-use siting are origination decisions now, not operational ones.
V2.0 also introduces a mandatory uncertainty assessment that converts directly into a deduction. Developers must state 90% confidence intervals for material parameters, propagate them by linear error propagation or Monte Carlo, and apply the resulting discount factors to both reductions and removals. Low-technology facilities with limited instrumentation are explicitly required to apply conservative adjustments. In practice that is a quantified haircut on issuance for weak MRV, and the clearest argument yet for building instrumentation in at the design stage.
Buyers are already inclining toward CCP-labelled, high-integrity removals. Clean, well-documented supply chains aren’t a nice-to-have. With an uncertainty deduction now applied at issuance, documentation quality shows up directly in the tonnes a project delivers. For agricultural residue streams there is a concrete hook: V2.0 directs developers to Section 6 of VM0051 to establish baseline rice straw burning practices over at least the three preceding years, which makes standardised MRV for those streams straightforward to design early rather than bolt on later.
Previously, VM0044 required a new greenfield facility, which left a lot of operating infrastructure with no route into the carbon market. V2.0 changes that, but with an important limit: only production above baseline is creditable. The benchmark is the maximum annual output across the three calendar years before the project start date, and developers must also account for demand growth that would have happened anyway. A processor running flat earns nothing. The creditable asset is the increment, not the plant.
For Aither, this means it can go after existing biochar processors directly, structuring co-development and off-take deals around expansion rather than waiting on new facilities to come online. Deals have to be sized on incremental tonnes, and diligence has to cover three years of verifiable production records. Aither can act as the bridge that upgrades their monitoring, handles the methodology alignment, and puts pre-purchase capital in place to get volume moving through the trading desk sooner.
ICVCM approved VM0044 V1.2 as CCP-eligible in August 2025, alongside two competing biochar methodologies. A revision of this scale would ordinarily require reassessment before the label carries across, so ICVCM alignment still matters but isn’t guaranteed for v2.0. If cleared at that bar, it will give corporate and institutional buyers a stronger integrity signal to point to, especially given how much scrutiny is now aimed at greenwashing risk and alignment with frameworks like CORSIA and Article 6.
That’s a discussion worth having with off-takers now. V2.0 credits will carry a different risk and quality profile from what’s currently in the market, and agreements should name the methodology version explicitly and address what happens if the final version differs from this draft.
Aither is built to help developers reach that premium. By combining advisory, project finance and technology-based solutions, it can navigate this transition by:
Aither is positioned to help developers adjust to this revision as an opportunity to move faster in the market compared to those who treat this revision as a compliance hurdle.
