Technical and commercial questions, answered

We are an independent third-party verification body providing ISO 14064-3 verification of organisational greenhouse gas inventories. Our distinctive offering to clients is outstanding value for money in independent GHG verification — for four structural reasons.

First, we do one thing. Independent GHG verification is our entire practice. No consultancy, no inventory building, no software sales, no competing schemes. The team, the training and the procedures are built around that single discipline, and that focus translates directly into efficiency on engagement.

Second, our verification programme is remote-first. We operate under ISO 14064-5:2026 for remote verification, which materially reduces engagement duration and travel cost without compromising audit rigour. Site assessment is undertaken where it adds substantive evidential value, not as a default.

Third, two decades of practice depth. Nearly twenty years of corporate verification across 23 economic sectors. We know where the methodological pitfalls are, what to look for, and how to move efficiently through complex multi-entity inventories. Experience compresses time on the engagement.

Fourth, we are free of compliance-market overhead. We do not operate in the mandatory compliance market — UK ETS, CORSIA — and do not carry the cost of UKAS accreditation, which would otherwise be passed to voluntary-market clients in fees, internal preparation time and witness-audit disruption. Voluntary-market clients should not pay for compliance-market infrastructure they do not need.

We are also the verification body behind the CarbonSAVER GOLD Standard — a carbon certification scheme formally assessed and approved by the British Government and the Environment Agency following an extensive consultation with businesses, the public sector and a wide range of environmental groups. Why Carbon Verification — in detail →

We have been conducting independent GHG verification for nearly two decades. In that time we have verified inventories across 23 sectors, from FTSE-listed financial institutions and NHS trusts to police forces, local government, international humanitarian NGOs and manufacturing operations spanning multiple continents.

We have verified GHG inventories across automotive, business services, construction, education, consumer products, financial services, central and local government, healthcare, charities and NGOs, information services, mining and extraction, hospitality and leisure, media and entertainment, manufacturing, emergency services, energy and utilities, retail and distribution, transport and logistics, telecommunications, waste management, and real estate.

No. Carbon Verification Limited is a structurally independent verification body. We are not a subsidiary of a consultancy, a certification network, or a software provider, and we maintain no commercial relationships that could compromise our independence.

We provide independent third-party verification of organisational greenhouse gas inventories against ISO 14064-1 and the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. Our verification methodology follows ISO 14064-3. We cover Scope 1 (direct emissions), Scope 2 (indirect energy), Scope 3 (value chain emissions) and, where included, Scope 4 (avoided emissions).

No. We do not advise on reduction strategies, net zero pathways, target-setting, or offsetting. We identify and document what your data shows. Advising on what to do about it is a separate discipline — and one that would compromise our independence if we provided it.

No. We verify inventories your team has prepared. If you need help building your inventory before verification, that work must be done by your own team or an external consultant.

No. We do not endorse, recommend, or receive commission from any carbon accounting platform, software provider, or technology vendor. Our opinion is formed on the evidence, not on which tool produced it.

No. We are not a multi-scheme certification body. We do one thing: independent ISO 14064-3 verification of greenhouse gas inventories. Every member of our team, every hour of training, and every procedure we operate is built around that single purpose.

No. Verification is an evidence-based audit opinion on the accuracy of reported GHG data. It is not a financial product or investment service.

Our verification programme follows seven stages under ISO 14064-3 and ISO/IEC 17029: pre-engagement review (we assess whether we have the competence, capacity and independence to deliver the engagement properly, and either accept and issue a formal proposal or decline and explain why); the verification agreement (a legally enforceable agreement defining scope, applicable standard, level of assurance, materiality threshold and the rules governing use of the verification statement); planning (team assignment with sector-appropriate competence, risk assessment of material misstatement, and a documented verification plan); verification execution (testing the inventory, calculation methodologies, emission factors and activity data, with corrective action and re-audit at no additional charge where required); independent review (review of the verification team's work by personnel with no involvement in the execution, confirming evidence sufficiency); decision and verification statement (made by personnel independent of the execution team — a structural requirement of ISO/IEC 17029); and post-issuance monitoring (if new information comes to light that could materially affect the statement, we will contact you and revise or withdraw it if necessary). A detailed findings report is provided at the end of every engagement regardless of outcome. Our verification programme in detail →

The findings report identifies all material and non-material misstatements, nonconformities with the applicable standard, data quality weaknesses, calculation errors, boundary gaps, and areas for improvement. Each finding is ranked by severity and materiality. The report is issued to every client, whether or not verification is confirmed.

Our obligations do not end at issuance. If new facts come to light that could materially affect the statement, we will contact you and — if necessary — revise or withdraw it. All engagement records are retained securely and confidentially for a minimum of seven years.

A complete GHG inventory report with calculations and methodology clearly documented; source documentation for emission categories within scope; a primary contact who understands your data collection and calculation processes; and timely responses to information requests. Organisations with well-prepared data move through verification significantly faster and at lower cost.

The decision on whether to confirm your inventory claim is made by personnel who were not involved in the verification execution. This structural separation — required by ISO/IEC 17029 — ensures the decision rests solely on the evidence.

Yes. You will be informed of the names and roles of all team members with sufficient notice for any objection to be raised.

Limited assurance uses inquiry, analytical procedures and targeted data testing to provide moderate confidence that your inventory is free from material misstatement. It produces a negative-form conclusion: "nothing has come to our attention…" It is appropriate for the majority of voluntary reporting, CDP submissions, and ESG disclosures.

Reasonable assurance provides the highest level of confidence, requiring extensive data testing, source-level cross-checking, and detailed methodology review. It produces a positive-form conclusion — a direct statement on accuracy. It typically requires 50–100% more audit hours than limited assurance and is suited to high-stakes regulatory compliance.

Most start with limited assurance. We will advise you if your reporting obligations, procurement requirements or board expectations require more. We do not upsell — we advise on what the evidence and the standards require.

Materiality is the concept that misstatements — individually or in aggregate — could influence the decisions of intended users of your inventory. Our standard quantitative threshold is 5% of total reported emissions for Limited Assurance and 2% for Reasonable Assurance, unless the applicable reporting framework or client agreement specifies otherwise. Materiality may also be qualitative — the omission of information that could affect stakeholder understanding.

Remote verification is our default approach, not a fallback or contingency. We deliver the same assured opinion with reduced cost, faster scheduling and a fraction of the carbon footprint. Our remote methodology conforms to ISO 14064-5:2026.

Yes. The evidence-gathering procedures, materiality assessment, independent review, and opinion-issuance requirements are identical. What changes is how we gather evidence — not the standards we apply to it.

Our teams retain full authority to require in-person attendance whenever professional judgement demands it — for example, where the risk profile of a facility is high, where programme rules mandate physical attendance, or where remote evidence proves inadequate during the engagement. In these cases, we schedule a targeted site visit to address the specific evidence gap rather than defaulting to a full on-site engagement.

Secure encrypted document exchange; video conferencing for interviews, opening meetings and closing meetings; satellite and airborne imagery for land-use and facility corroboration; and LiDAR and remote sensing for spatial measurements where applicable. Each technology is assessed for risk before deployment, covering data integrity, sensory limitations, regulatory acceptability, team competence, and evidence security.

ISO 14064-5:2026 — Guidance on activities and techniques used remotely in conducting verification and validation of GHG statements — provides the risk-based framework underpinning our remote methodology. Our broader engagement programme conforms to ISO 14064-3, ISO 14065:2020, ISO 14066:2023, and ISO/IEC 17029.

Yes. With no travel, accommodation or subsistence charges, we can allocate more of the fee to the work that matters — examining your data. Scheduling is also faster when verification is not constrained by travel diaries.

We verify organisational GHG inventories against ISO 14064-1 and the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. Our verification methodology follows ISO 14064-3. We cover Scopes 1, 2 and 3 across all emission source categories.

ISO 14064 is the standard family governing how organisations quantify, report and verify their GHG emissions (Part 1: inventories; Part 3: verification methodology). ISO 14065 is a different standard entirely — it sets requirements for verification bodies themselves, covering competence, impartiality and operational procedures. It is the standard accreditation bodies use to assess whether a verification body is fit to practise.

Yes. An ISO 14064-3 verification opinion is recognised by CDP, and provides the evidential foundation for SBTi commitments, CSRD-mandated climate disclosures, CBAM reporting, and GRESB submissions. If you are reporting to a specific framework and want to confirm our verification meets its requirements, contact us.

ISO 14068-1 is the international standard for carbon neutrality claims. It requires a verified GHG inventory, a carbon management plan, and transparent disclosure of any residual emissions and their treatment. We can verify the GHG inventory component against ISO 14064-3 in support of an ISO 14068-1 claim.

The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) extends mandatory climate disclosure requirements to a growing range of companies operating in the EU. Where assurance is required under CSRD, independent ISO 14064-3 verification provides the evidential foundation for the GHG inventory component.

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) requires importers to report and verify the embedded carbon content of specified goods. ISO 14064-3 verification is relevant to the evidential requirements of CBAM reporting.

The UK's Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act empowers the Competition and Markets Authority to issue fines of up to 10% of global turnover for misleading environmental claims. The Advertising Standards Authority is actively targeting unsubstantiated statements such as "carbon neutral" or "eco-friendly." Independent ISO 14064-3 verification provides marketing teams with defensible evidence for environmental claims.

The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard is the foremost international framework for corporate emissions reporting. It defines the Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 architecture used in virtually every modern emissions disclosure, and underpins CDP, SBTi, CSRD, ISO 14064-1, ISO 14068-1, SECR and central government procurement under PPN 06/21. Adoption among large listed companies is overwhelming: 98% of the FTSE 100, 97% of the S&P 500, and 92% of Fortune 500 companies that disclose emissions report against it. Our entire practice is built on the GHG Protocol — two decades of corporate footprinting work across 23 economic sectors, with full coverage of Scope 1, Scope 2 (location- and market-based) and all 15 Scope 3 categories. Full treatment of the GHG Protocol and its standing in UK corporate reporting →

The forthcoming GHG Protocol Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) revision restructures corporate reporting into four distinct statements. Statement 1 — Physical GHG Inventory: the existing Scope 1, location-based Scope 2 and Scope 3 inventory. Statement 2 — Market-Based GHG Inventory: a market-based view reflecting qualified contractual instruments, with energy attribute certificates (REGOs, GoOs, I-RECs) tracked for temporal matching, deliverability and additionality. Statement 3 — GHG Impact Statement: consequential accounting of avoided emissions, reductions and removal enhancements within and beyond the value chain, including BVCM credit retirements under the ISO 14068-1 workflow. Statement 4 — Non-GHG Indicators: performance indicators not expressed in CO₂e, including low-carbon procurement percentages, renewable energy purchases, financial contributions to mitigation and intensity metrics. Each carries new evidential demands. We are tracking the AMI revision in real time and our verification methodology is being prepared against the four-statement structure ahead of formal adoption. Clients moving towards multi-statement reporting will receive verification reflecting current best practice. Full treatment of the AMI four-statement framework →

Yes. SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) requires approximately 11,900 UK enterprises — quoted companies, large unquoted companies and large LLPs — to disclose energy use and emissions in their annual report. While SECR does not statutorily mandate verification, official UK Government guidance explicitly recommends the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard as the calculation methodology. Independent ISO 14064-3 verification of a SECR-aligned disclosure substantially strengthens the credibility of the reported figures, provides a defensible audit trail for the directors who sign the annual report, and supports investor due diligence. We have supported SECR-aligned disclosures across financial services, NHS trusts, manufacturing groups, and complex multi-entity corporate structures.

Yes. Procurement Policy Note 06/21 requires any business bidding for a UK central government contract worth more than £5 million to publish a Carbon Reduction Plan disclosing Scope 1, Scope 2 and specified Scope 3 categories using the GHG Protocol methodology. We verify Carbon Reduction Plans against ISO 14064-3 to give the disclosed figures defensible third-party assurance. This matters in two distinct situations: where the procuring department's evaluation framework places weight on the credibility of the underlying data, and where the supplier wants to differentiate their bid through verified rather than self-declared emissions information. Our verification opinion is consistent with the data quality expectations set by PPN 06/21 and provides a substantive answer to the procurement question of whether the disclosed figures will hold up.

GHG Protocol verification involves testing the inventory’s conformance with the standard’s boundary-setting rules, calculation methodologies, scope categorisation and disclosure requirements. In practice this means testing the organisational boundary decision (control vs equity-share), the operational boundary across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, emission factor selection and application, data quality at source (utility invoices, fuel records, supplier data, mileage logs, refrigerant logs, contractual instruments), the categorisation of activities across the 15 Scope 3 categories, and the disclosure narrative for transparency and consistency. It is methodologically demanding work — particularly across Scope 3 — and it is the territory in which our practice is anchored. Our verification methodology operationalises the GHG Protocol through ISO 14064-3, the international standard for verification methodology.

Start with a conversation. We will ask about your inventory scope, how your data is collected, what standards you are reporting against, and what you need the verification for. A discovery call is designed for this purpose.

This is more common than most organisations expect. Our approach removes the financial penalty for finding issues. If your initial audit identifies problems with methodology or data, we document them in a structured findings report, agree an action plan with explicit success criteria, give you up to six months to implement corrections, and reaudit at no additional verification fee. You pay once.

If your initial audit identifies issues, the engagement does not close — it enters its second phase. You have up to six months to implement the agreed corrective actions before resubmission. The original fee covers both phases.

Yes, unconditionally. Where corrections are made in response to our findings, the resubmission is assessed at no additional verification fee. There is no second invoice.

No. Our approach removes the financial penalty for honesty. It does not lower the technical bar. Our opinion is issued against the same standards regardless of how many rounds the engagement takes. An opinion will not be issued on data that does not meet ISO 14064-3 or GHG Protocol standards.

Findings are rated across four levels: Critical (must be addressed before certification can be issued); High (address within the six-month improvement window); Medium (address within twelve months); Low (consider in the next reporting cycle).

Verification is not an attestation of perfection. It is an independent opinion that your methodology is sound, your data is credible, your limitations are disclosed, and your improvement pathway is realistic. It does not mean your emissions are zero, or that your inventory has no room for improvement — it means it meets the standard.

It is suited to organisations preparing their first comprehensive baseline; those with Scope 3 data quality concerns; those that have undergone an acquisition, divestment or boundary change; and those preparing for a specific scheme submission (ISO 14068-1, Gold Standard, BVCM or similar) with a deadline approaching.

We provide tailored fixed-fee quotes — no hourly rates, no surprises. Cost depends on inventory complexity, reporting boundary (Scopes 1, 2 and 3), number of sites or entities, data management quality, and whether you require limited or reasonable assurance. Our pricing reflects four structural efficiencies that translate directly into lower cost for clients: a single-discipline practice with no consultancy or software cross-sell to subsidise; a remote-first verification methodology under ISO 14064-5:2026 that materially reduces engagement duration; two decades of corporate practice depth across 23 sectors that compresses time on engagement; and no UKAS accreditation overhead passed through in fees, internal preparation time or witness-audit disruption. Why Carbon Verification — in detail →

A straightforward single-site verification with clean, well-documented data can be completed in days. A multi-entity, multi-country verification with complex Scope 3 categories will take several weeks. The single biggest factor is data readiness.

Every engagement is governed by a legally enforceable agreement specifying scope and objectives, applicable standards and programme requirements, level of assurance, materiality threshold, responsibilities of both parties, the fee and payment terms, and rules governing use of the verification statement in your external communications.

All verification records — pre-engagement information, verification plans, evidence gathered, findings reports, and statements — are retained securely and confidentially for a minimum of seven years.

Verification gives directors the same level of confidence in climate disclosures that they apply to financial statements — because an independent auditor has tested the evidence first. It creates a clear record of due diligence, demonstrating that your organisation applied reasonable scrutiny before publication, protecting both the business and its directors as personal liability for climate disclosures grows.

In an era of high scrutiny, "self-declared" environmental claims are often viewed with skepticism. ISO 14064-3 verification solves this by shifting your reporting from a potential reputational liability to a validated asset. It allows you to make transparent, data-backed claims that resonate with eco-conscious consumers and withstand regulatory "greenwashing" audits.

Procurement teams and large public sector buyers increasingly require verified emissions data across their supply chains to meet their own Scope 3 reporting obligations. Research indicates suppliers without verified ESG data face a materially higher risk of losing contract renewals. ISO 14064-3 verification positions your organisation as a transparent, low-risk supplier.

Absolutely. Third-party verification is a core requirement for reaching CDP’s Leadership (A or A-) scoring bands. Without it, your score is effectively "capped" regardless of your performance, as CDP cannot validate the accuracy of your disclosures. Verification solves this by providing the technical assurance needed to move your reporting from a basic submission to a high-scoring, investor-ready grade.

Regulatory risk (fines up to 10% of global turnover under the DMCC Act); procurement exclusion (public and private buyers require verified data); reputational risk from greenwashing accusations; and missed green finance opportunities. Research suggests the majority of ASA greenwashing rulings could have been avoided with independent assurance backing the claims.

Verification only has value if the verifier has no stake in the outcome. When a verification body also provides consultancy, advisory services, or carbon management software to the same client, a structural conflict of interest exists — even if individuals act with integrity. The market has seen the consequences of this model in financial audit and credit rating. Our opinion is determined solely by the evidence.

Fixed-fee engagements with no outcome-dependent pricing; an absolute prohibition on providing both consultancy and verification for the same client; no commission or equity relationships with software providers, offset suppliers, or consultancies; mandatory personnel declarations of any association with clients; and separation of execution, review and decision functions — the person who conducts the audit does not have sole authority over the opinion.

Self-interest (financial incentive to deliver a favourable opinion — managed through fixed fees); self-review (opining on work we helped create — managed through a prohibition on consultancy); familiarity (excessive trust in a long-standing client — managed through structured procedures and independent review); and intimidation (coercion from clients or commercial pressure — managed through ensuring personnel can report findings honestly without adverse consequence).

Yes. Our full Impartiality Policy (CVL-POL-IMP-001) is published on this website and covers the structural safeguards, threat identification and management process, governance and oversight, and how to raise concerns.

Our team is selected, trained and formally authorised against the competence requirements of ISO 14066:2023 — the standard governing the knowledge, skills and professional conduct of verification teams. No individual conducts verification activities beyond their demonstrated and authorised competence.

ISO 14066:2023 requires all verification team members to apply six principles: integrity; fair presentation; due professional care; professional judgement; impartiality; and an evidence-based approach. Representations by the responsible party are not accepted at face value — they are tested against sufficient and appropriate evidence, and contradictory evidence is actively sought (professional scepticism).

ISO 14066:2023 defines three distinct roles. The verification team plans and executes the verification and drafts the opinion. Technical experts provide specialist sector or subject-matter knowledge but do not sign the opinion. The independent reviewer — who must not have been involved in the fieldwork — reviews the verification activities and conclusions before the opinion is issued.

Demonstrated expertise includes: CHP allocation; refrigerant loss calculation; fleet and transport emissions; half-hourly electricity data analysis; international fuel consumption matrices; Staff commuting and homeworking; Scope 3 spend-based and activity-based methodologies across all 15 GHG Protocol categories; emission factor validation using DESNZ/DEFRA and international sources; multi-entity global programmes; Scope 4 avoided emissions

No. Where an engagement falls outside our collective competence, we will say so and either decline or supplement the team with a qualified technical expert under ISO 14066:2023 §7. We do not accept engagements on the assumption that we can learn on your inventory.

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service is the national accreditation body recognised by government to assess organisations that provide verification services. For GHG verification, accreditation is granted against ISO 14065 and ISO 17029. It is a credential held by the verification body, assessed at periodic surveillance audits for a defined scope of schemes, sectors and gases.

For the vast majority of businesses, the answer is no. UKAS accreditation is a specific legal requirement reserved almost exclusively for mandatory regulatory schemes, such as the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS), CORSIA, or maritime emissions regulations. For standard corporate reporting—including ISO 14064-1, CDP, SECR, and SBTi—the requirement is for independent third-party verification. Most organizations find that a qualified independent verifier provides the same data integrity and stakeholder trust without the higher costs and rigid cycles associated with regulatory-grade accreditation.

Start with the standards. A credible verifier operates in full conformance with ISO 14065 (requirements for validation and verification bodies) and ISO 14066 (competence requirements for GHG verifiers). Ask directly: does the verifier operate against both standards, and can they demonstrate this? Many organisations presenting themselves as verifiers cannot answer this question with confidence. If a provider cannot articulate how they meet ISO 14065 and ISO 14066, they are not operating a verification body — they are offering an opinion.

Beyond the body-level standards, assess: the methodology standard verified against (ISO 14064-3); experience with remote verification and conformance with ISO 14064-5:2026; structural independence between audit and advisory functions; sector evidence (ask for examples from your industry); who will perform the fieldwork — not just who manages the engagement — and who will sign the opinion; and the documented process for handling findings, disputes, and resubmissions.

On accreditation scope: buyer beware. UKAS accreditation is granted against a defined and often narrow scope — a specific methodology, a specific sector of the economy. An accredited body whose scope was granted for, say, energy generation under the UK ETS carries no meaningful assurance for a manufacturing or professional services inventory. Accreditation in a different scope is not accreditation for your engagement. A rigorous unaccredited verifier applying ISO 14065 and ISO 14066 in full across your sector will routinely deliver more substantive assurance than an accredited body operating at the margins of its granted scope with junior staff.

One further purchasing consideration: what happens if you do not pass first time? Look for a provider who operates a formal corrective action process — a structured improvement plan, a defined window to address findings, and a reassessment carried out at no additional cost. This de-risks the verification investment considerably. Rather than facing a binary pass/fail outcome, organisations have a clear pathway to verification. It is a mark of a verifier genuinely invested in client outcomes, not simply in billing verification cycles.

Yes. Annual emissions reports under the UK ETS must be verified by a verifier accredited to ISO 14065 by UKAS for the relevant activity scope. This is a mandatory compliance cap and trade scheme.

Because carbon has a direct cash value. In schemes like the UK ETS, your reported footprint determines exactly how many carbon credits you must buy. Since these credits trade at significant costs, there is a massive financial incentive to "under-report" to save money. UKAS-accredited verification exists as a government-level safeguard to close this loophole, ensuring that the carbon market remains honest and that financial obligations aren’t bypassed. The "problem" is when companies apply this heavy regulatory logic where it doesn’t belong. This mandate does not apply to voluntary reporting (like the GHG Protocol), allowing you to choose more agile, cost-effective independent verification.

We do not operate in the mandatory compliance market — we do not verify UK ETS or CORSIA submissions — and UKAS accreditation is, in commercial terms, a compliance-market instrument. For a verification body confined to the voluntary market, the costs of maintaining accreditation must still be recovered from somewhere, and the only place they can be recovered is from clients who derive no regulatory benefit from the credential. We have taken the deliberate view that loading a compliance cost onto voluntary-market clients is not in their interest. We operate in full conformance with the same ISO standards an accredited body works to — ISO 14065, ISO 14066, ISO 14064-3, ISO 14064-5:2026 and ISO/IEC 17029 — and our procedures and controls are publicly documented and independently reviewable on that basis.

To maintain accreditation, a verification body must permit UKAS assessors to observe live verification engagements. A UKAS assessor would attend an opening meeting, sit in on interviews with client staff, observe data testing and review the working papers produced from the client's inventory. The audit assesses the verifier, not the client — but the client carries the time cost, the confidentiality exposure and any disruption to the engagement schedule. Witness audits are not in themselves objectionable; they are the appropriate mechanism for compliance-market oversight. They are, however, an additional burden that voluntary-market clients should not be asked to bear in exchange for a credential that confers no benefit on their reporting.

The standards do the work of assurance; accreditation is the record of having been audited against them. We operate to the identical ISO framework an accredited body operates to: ISO 14065 for verification body requirements, ISO 14066 for verifier competence, ISO/IEC 17029 for conformity assessment, ISO 14064-3 for verification methodology and ISO 14064-5:2026 for remote verification. Our impartiality controls, decision-separation procedures, competence framework, evidence requirements, materiality assessment and findings process are built directly against those standards and are publicly documented on this website. We are also free to adopt evolving standards and revised methodologies as soon as they are operational, without waiting for an accreditation scope extension. Where a client's reporting genuinely requires an accredited body, we will say so and direct the client to one — without exception.

No, and the distinction matters. UKAS accreditation is granted against ISO 14065 (verification body requirements) and ISO/IEC 17029 (general conformity assessment). It is not granted against the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, which is the foremost international framework for corporate GHG inventories and the framework that underpins CDP, SBTi, CSRD, ISO 14064-1, ISO 14068-1 and most major reporting schemes. There is no UKAS accreditation pathway against the GHG Protocol itself. An accredited verifier's certificate confirms an external assessor has audited the body's procedures against the ISO framework. It does not confirm the verifier is current with GHG Protocol revisions, applies them correctly, or has integrated forthcoming developments such as the GHG Protocol Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) multi-statement framework. For corporate clients reporting to GHG Protocol-aligned schemes, methodological currency with the GHG Protocol matters more than accreditation against the verification body standards. More on the GHG Protocol and its standing in UK corporate reporting →

Check the accredited scope, in detail. UKAS accreditation is granted for a precisely defined activity, and the scope statement on the certificate — published on the UKAS public register — tells you what the credential actually covers. To take a real example from the register, a verification body's accredited scope reads: "Validation and verification of environmental information to ISO 14065:2020 – Regulated Programmes. Product accredited: Verification of carbon dioxide emissions data from Maritime Transport." That is properly held accreditation — but it is accreditation for one regulated activity, one gas, one sector, one transport mode. It does not transfer to corporate inventory verification, to multi-entity programmes, to Scope 3 value-chain work, or to the methodological complexity of a typical corporate GHG engagement. The relevant question is not "are they accredited" but "are they accredited for what we are asking them to do." A surprising number of accreditation certificates, examined against the inventory in front of you, do not pass that test.

No. Carbon Verification Limited does not verify Emissions Trading Schemes in the mandatory compliance market. Our work adds the most value in the substantial body of voluntary GHG reporting and assurance across 23 economic sectors.

Yes, clearly and upfront. If the standard you are reporting against requires a UKAS-accredited body, we will tell you and direct you to the appropriate route.

Appeals must be submitted in writing within 30 calendar days of the verification statement date, specifying the decision being challenged, the grounds for appeal, and supporting evidence. Appeals are investigated by personnel not involved in the original decision. If upheld, the verification decision is reconsidered and a revised or new statement issued where appropriate. Full details are in our Appeals and Complaints Procedure (CVL-POL-ACP-001).

Complaints may be submitted in writing at any time by any interested party — including clients, prospective clients, regulators, competitors, programme owners, users of verified claims, and members of the public. We acknowledge in writing within five working days and investigate using personnel not involved in the matter complained about. Full details are in our Appeals and Complaints Procedure.

Yes. All information obtained from or about clients during verification is treated as proprietary and confidential, managed through legally enforceable agreements, and accessible only to personnel directly involved in the engagement. It is used solely for the purpose of verification and never for marketing, benchmarking, or statistical analysis without explicit written consent. Our full Confidentiality Policy is published on this website (CVL-POL-CON-001).

Where we are legally required to disclose, we will notify you of the information released (unless notification is prohibited by law) and disclose only the minimum necessary to satisfy the legal requirement.

The matter may be escalated to an independent party agreed between us and the appellant or complainant, or to any relevant regulatory authority or programme owner with jurisdiction.