Eligibility Flags and Claim Suitability Explained
How to read ICVCM CCP eligibility, CORSIA eligibility, Article 6 and ITMO status, and the five claim suitability categories, and what each one means for the environmental claims you can make.
Why eligibility flags exist
A quality grade tells you how good a credit is. Eligibility flags tell you what a credit is allowed to be used for. The two are related but separate. A high grade does not automatically make a credit eligible for a compliance scheme, and an eligible credit is not automatically high grade. On CarbSet these flags are first-class fields you can filter and sort by, so you can find credits that fit both your quality bar and your intended use.
All quality assessments on CarbSet are currently provisional. This means scores have not yet been independently verified by an external assessor. A Provisional badge is shown wherever a grade appears.
ICVCM Core Carbon Principles (CCP) eligibility
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) publishes the Core Carbon Principles (CCP): a set of thresholds a credit must meet to be recognised as high-integrity. When a credit carries the CCP-eligible flag, it means the credit's methodology and project type have been assessed against those principles and approved.
Treat the CCP flag as an independent integrity signal. It is a useful shortlist filter for buyers who want to align with an emerging market standard, particularly corporates whose disclosures will be scrutinised.
CORSIA eligibility
CORSIA (the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) is the aviation sector's compliance scheme. Airlines use eligible credits to meet their obligations for international flights. A CORSIA-eligible credit has been approved for that specific purpose and usually carries a defined vintage period (for example, 2024 to 2026) during which it qualifies.
If you are not an airline, CORSIA eligibility is still informative: it signals that the credit cleared a compliance-grade bar. Always check the vintage period, because eligibility is time-bound.
Article 6 and ITMO status
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is the mechanism that lets one country transfer a mitigation outcome to another country and count it towards a national target. When a credit is transferred internationally under this mechanism it becomes an Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcome (ITMO).
Two conditions matter here:
- Host-country authorisation: the government where the project sits must formally authorise the transfer through a Letter of Authorisation.
- Corresponding adjustment: the host country must subtract the transferred tonnes from its own accounts so the same reduction is not counted twice.
On CarbSet the Article 6 status shows one of: not applicable, unauthorised, authorised, or corresponding adjustment applied. The final state is the strongest, because it confirms the double-counting safeguard is in place.
Claim suitability: the five categories
Claim suitability is CarbSet's guidance on the strongest defensible use for a credit. It is one of five values.
| Value | What it means for your claims |
|---|---|
| corporate_net_zero | Robust enough to support a corporate net zero or carbon neutral claim, subject to your own disclosure standards. The highest-confidence category. |
| internal_carbon_price | Suitable for internal carbon pricing and budgeting, where the credit informs decisions but underpins a lighter external claim. |
| voluntary_offset | Appropriate for a general voluntary offset claim by an individual or organisation, without compliance-scheme weight. The default for most listings. |
| compliance_adjacent | Sits near a compliance use case (such as an aviation or national scheme) but should be checked against that scheme's current rules before you rely on it. |
| not_recommended | We do not advise using this credit to support a public offset claim. It may still have a role, but the risk to your reputation is elevated. |
Use claim suitability as a starting filter, not a substitute for your own advice. Your legal, sustainability, and disclosure obligations sit with you.
Reading the flags together
Combine the signals. A credit that is CCP-eligible, has a corresponding adjustment applied, and is marked corporate_net_zero gives you the widest room to make a defensible claim. A credit with none of those flags may still be a sound voluntary purchase, but your claim should stay modest.
For definitions of every term here, see the Glossary. To understand how grades are assigned, read Understanding quality scoring.