verra

“Burning waste produces a lot of harmful substances,” said Diego Ezcurra, manager for methodologies with the offset registry Verra, which is currently in the process of verifying the Sonepat plant for carbon-credits eligibility.

They analyzed publicly available databases of two prominent proponents of plastic offsetting, the accreditor Verra and the Plastic Credit Exchange marketplace.

Verra, the world’s leading certifier of carbon offsets, said in a presentation alongside the talks that plastic credits can be a tool for mobilizing the money needed to tackle plastic pollution.

“The finance associated with the treaty is near as important as its ambition,” Kristen Linscott, senior program officer for plastics policy and markets at Verra, said in a presentation.

It also says there are serious doubts about the additionality of Verra’s plastic credit program – a key offsetting concept meaning that credits pay for activities, in this case waste collection and recycling, that wouldn’t happen without the financial programs.