Claims policy

The model

Every initiative has one impact record, and every line on it belongs to one of three tiers that are never mixed or added together: reported activity, estimated impact and verified impact. Each unit of impact has one claim owner.

What may be said

Reported activity: that a stated number of participants completed a stated number of actions.

Estimated impact: a figure worked out with conservative, documented factors, always labelled “estimated, not verified”.

Verified impact: only what an independent technical party has reviewed may be called “verified”.

For pooled green-tech batches: “converted” or “utilised” only where a partner physically captures and uses carbon; otherwise “reduced”, “removed” or “credit purchased”, with registry serial numbers where credits are retired.

What may not be said

Estimated and verified figures added together, or an estimate presented as settled.

The same unit of impact claimed by more than one party. A company claims only what it funded, and its employees' estimated impact is not claimed again.

That anything cancels or balances the contributor's emissions before it has been independently verified.

That tax relief applies, or that the employee statement is a tax certificate.

How it is enforced

This website cannot be published if any page contains wording that describes cancelling emissions or promising outcomes. Records and reports pass the same check.