Chicago Climate Exchange

Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), launched in 2003, is the world’s first and North America’s only active voluntary, legally binding integrated trading system to reduce emissions of all six major greenhouse gases (GHGs), with offset projects worldwide.

All CCX offsets are issued on a retrospective basis, with the CFI vintage applying to the program year in which the GHG reduction took place. Projects must undergo third party verification by a CCX approved verifier.  All verification reports are then inspected for completeness by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, formerly NASD).

Offset projects can be registered by Members, Offset Providers and Offset Aggregators. Offset Providers and Offset Aggregators do not have significant GHG emissions.  Entities that have significant GHG emissions are eligible to submit offset project proposals only if they have committed to commit their own emissions to the CCX Emission Reduction Schedule as Members.  Offset projects involving less than 10,000 metric of CO₂ equivalent per year should be registered and sold through an Offset Aggregator.  The terms of the business and legal relationships between aggregators and offset project owners are left to the discretion of those parties.

Voluntary Carbon Standard

The VCS Program provides a robust, new global standard and program for approval of credible voluntary offsets.

VCS offsets must be real (have happened), additional (beyond business-as-usual activities), measurable, permanent (not temporarily displace emissions), independently verified and unique (not used more than once to offset emissions).

Program Objective:

• Standardize and provide transparency and credibility to the voluntary offset market.
• Enhance business, consumer and government confidence in voluntary offsets. 
• Create a trusted and tradable voluntary offset credit; the Voluntary Carbon Unit. (VCU)
• Stimulate additional investments in emissions reductions and low carbon solutions
• Experiment and stimulate innovation in emission reduction technologies and offer lessons that can be build into future regulation.
• Provide a clear chain of ownership over voluntary offsets that prevents them being used twice. This is achieved through multiple VCS registries and a central project database that is open to the public.