As the premier carbon offset registry for the North American carbon market, the Climate Action Reserve encourages action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by ensuring the environmental integrity and financial benefit of emissions reduction projects.

The Reserve establishes high-quality standards for carbon offset projects, oversees independent third-party verification bodies, issues carbon credits generated from such projects and tracks the transaction of credits over time in a transparent, publicly-accessible system.

The Reserve offsets program demonstrates that high-quality carbon offsets foster real reductions in GHG pollution, support activities that reduce local air pollution, spur growth in new green technologies and allow emission reduction goals to be met at a lower cost.

The transparent processes, multi-stakeholder participation and rigorous standards of the Reserve help earn confidence that registered emissions reductions are real, additional, verifiable, enforceable and permanent. The Reserve’s expertise and insight helped inform the development of the State of California’s cap-and-trade program, which adopted four of the Reserve’s protocols for use in its regulation.

The Reserve began as the California Climate Action Registry, which was created by the State of California in 2001 to address climate change through voluntary calculation and public reporting of emissions. The California Registry helped over 415 leading California-based corporations, organizations, government agencies, and municipalities to voluntarily calculate and publicly report their GHG emissions. Its established expertise in emissions accounting translated into expertise in emissions reductions accounting for the North American carbon market.