360° Impact Portfolio
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Method / What you can say

The claim comes first. It decides which credits qualify.

This is the first question we ask on a new assignment, and it is where most buyers need the most help. Four routes are available. Each supports something specific, requires something of your organisation, and stops somewhere definite.

Specify your portfolio → See the four categories
Four rules / Every category

The claim category is never averaged.

Impact is a scale and aggregates across the portfolio. Claim eligibility is a threshold and does not. These four hold for every route on this page.

Contributions beyond the value chain complement reductions within it. They never replace them, and the two are always reported separately.

01

Every credit qualifies on its own

Each carbon-carrying credit we deliver qualifies for the category you contracted, individually, or it is not delivered. No credit is carried through by the others.

02

Credits are never target progress

They finance action towards global net zero, remedial action, historical-emissions responsibility and residual-removal milestones. None substitutes for reducing your own emissions.

03

The contribution is reported separately

Retired credits are not subtracted from your gross emissions inventory. Action within the value chain and the contribution beyond it both stay visible.

04

The portfolio never proves your position

It establishes what the credits are and what was retired in your name. Your boundary, inventory, pathway and reporting remain yours to establish and, where required, to have assured.

The routes / Four categories

Four categories, and what each one buys you.

The first three are the established contribution and neutrality routes, and they nest: a project qualifying for the hardest also qualifies for the two below it. The fourth is a separate, removal-only end-state route.

ISO 14068-1 ISO/DIS 14060:2026 SBTi CNZS v2.0

1 · Climate contribution

The most straightforward claim. A voluntary contribution to verified mitigation beyond your value chain, disclosed separately from your greenhouse-gas inventory.

  • When it is available

    At any time. It does not require a reduction pathway, a target or a transition plan, so it remains open to an organisation that has not yet built one.

  • Framework route

    ISO/DIS 14060 §11.3.3 climate finance. Two named uses sit inside this category: excess-emissions remedial action, and a historical-emissions contribution addressing emissions arising before your base year.

  • What the credits support

    That verified mitigation was financed and retired in your name, in a stated quantity, for a stated period.

  • What you establish separately

    Your reporting boundary and period, and separation from your inventory. For remedial action, that the finance is additional and additive and distinguished from measures already committed in your transition plan. For historical emissions, separate accounting and exclusion from target progress.

  • What it does not prove

    It does not by itself support a neutrality claim, and it is not progress against a reduction target.

2 · Ongoing emissions responsibility

Responsibility taken for ongoing emissions alongside a science-based target, rather than a substitute for reducing them. Emissions released today have an effect today, and responsibility does not wait for a future commitment to mature.

  • When it is available

    Alongside an active science-based target, and never instead of one.

  • Framework route

    SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0. Project and credit integrity are mapped to C41–C42; the accounting, reporting and assurance obligations at C43–C44 are yours.

  • What the credits support

    The coverage percentage you report, and the integrity of the credits standing behind it.

  • What you establish separately

    Your total emissions, the coverage calculation, the recognition level selected, your public reporting, and independent assurance.

  • What it does not prove

    Nothing here counts toward the target, and the credits are not subtracted from gross emissions.

3 · Carbon neutrality under ISO 14068-1

A defined subject’s unabated emissions for a stated period, addressed through contribution credits while science-based reduction continues. This is the hardest of the three, which is why a project qualifying for it also qualifies for the two above.

  • When it is available

    Where the subject and its boundary are defined, the inventory for that subject is complete, and reduction continues alongside.

  • Framework route

    ISO 14068-1. ISO/DIS 14060 §11.3.3 recognises it as one approach for directing near-term finance towards reduction and removal without jeopardising net-zero objectives. The climate-finance requirement is normative; the carbon-neutrality example is informative.

  • What the credits support

    That the unabated balance was settled by retiring verified contribution credits that qualify for this claim.

  • What you establish separately

    The subject and its boundary, the inventory, the reduction pathway, your Carbon Neutrality Management Plan, public reporting, and assurance where required.

  • What it does not prove

    It does not mean your organisation has achieved net zero. The claim should say so in terms.

4 · Net-zero residual counterbalancing Provisional

A removal-only portfolio supporting the counterbalancing of residual organisational emissions at achieved net zero. It is a separate end-state route, not a stronger version of the three above.

  • When it is available

    Only at achieved net zero, the fourth ISO 14060 claim stage. Not before it, and not as a way of getting there.

  • Framework route

    ISO/DIS 14060 §12, SBTi CNZS v2.0, or a dual route. Under ISO 14060, eligible storage provides at least a hundred years of effective durability. Under SBTi, residual long-lived gases are matched to long-lived removals retaining carbon for centuries to millennia; other residual gases may be matched to eligible D100 or long-lived removals.

  • What the credits support

    The quality, retirement, attribution, timing and allocation of the removals. Removal outcomes and residual emissions are matched to the same reporting period. That is the whole of it.

  • What you establish separately

    That the emissions are residual. That the organisational boundary and inventory are complete. That the reduction pathway has been achieved. That reporting is complete. And that the claim has been independently validated or verified.

  • What it does not prove

    It is not proof that your organisation has reached net zero. It supports one component of that claim and nothing else.

The distinction

Carbon neutral is not net zero.

Both are defined claims about defined things. Neither is an adjective, and neither is a ranked version of the other. Treating them as interchangeable is the single most common way a good portfolio ends up attached to a claim it cannot support.

Carbon neutrality · ISO 14068-1

A claim about a defined subject over a stated period. An entity, an activity, a product, an event. Its unabated emissions for that period are settled by retiring contribution credits, while science-based reduction continues. Change the subject or the period and it is a different claim, which is why the subject and period must appear in the claim itself.

Net zero · ISO 14060 and SBTi

A claim about the whole organisation and its pathway. Deep reduction along a science-aligned trajectory until only residual emissions remain, those residuals counterbalanced by removals. It is an end state reached by reducing, not a balance struck by buying.

What credits can and cannot do

The boundary is not our interpretation. ISO 14060 §5.4 states it directly, and it is worth reading before you commission anything.

  • Credits can finance action towards global net zero, remedial action where an interim target is missed, responsibility for historical emissions, and residual-removal milestones on the way to an end state.
  • Eligible removals can counterbalance residual emissions at achieved net zero.
  • Credits cannot be counted as progress towards an interim or net-zero emissions-reduction target.
  • Nothing here substitutes for reducing your own emissions.

A carbon-neutrality statement that does not say it is not a net-zero claim is a claim waiting to be misread.

ISO 14060 / Claim stages

Where you are on the pathway changes what credits can do.

ISO 14060 sets out four claim stages. The stage you are at determines which categories are open to you, and your evidence pack records it.

  1. Aspiration

    Credits are not required at all. Any portfolio at this stage is additional climate finance and nothing more.

  2. Net-zero-aligned transition plan

    The climate-finance categories can support the plan, and removals can support the milestones set within it.

  3. Aligned progress

    The same support, now accompanied by annual delivery, retirement and milestone evidence.

  4. Achieved net zero

    Only here can net-zero residual counterbalancing support the removal component of the end-state claim.

A stated goal closes the first stage

An organisation with an existing or previously stated net-zero, carbon-neutral or climate-positive goal cannot use the aspiration claim. It must work towards the second stage by developing a transition plan. An ISO 14068-1 Carbon Neutrality Management Plan can form the basis of that plan.

The portfolio does not prove your stage

Nothing we deliver establishes that your organisation has reached any stage. Your evidence pack records the stage you have told us you are at, the claim route that follows from it, and the exact limit of what the portfolio can support.

ISO 14060 is cited here as ISO/DIS 14060:2026. Its requirements are treated as provisional until the final International Standard is published, at which point we will confirm the designation, clause numbering and any substantive change before presenting the mapping as final. The draft also directs users to an external table summarising the requirements for each claim stage; the claim-stage schedule cannot be treated as final until that table is available and version-controlled with the method. As at September 2026.

Before Category 4 / Removal Readiness

Category 4 is an end state. The trajectory towards it is separate.

Most organisations asking about removals are years from achieved net zero. What they need before then is not the category but a Removal Readiness Profile, and that is a separate deliverable rather than part of it.

What the profile records

Before net zero, your evidence pack can separately record anticipated residual emissions, removal milestones and your trajectory towards them. The trajectory must demonstrate a path to full counterbalancing at net zero. ISO 14060 §12.2 asks organisations to consider building a removals portfolio and increasing higher-durability supply at each milestone, balancing ex-post credits, offtakes, technological removals and nature-based removals.

An offtake is not a retirement

Delivered and retired removals stay distinct from forward offtakes. An undelivered offtake never enters retired quantities, a counterbalancing claim, or the arithmetic behind a 360° Impact Band. It is a contract for future delivery, and reporting it as anything else is how a removals trajectory becomes a misstatement.

What every Category 4 removal has to clear

The six Tier 1 criteria apply unchanged. On top of them, this category adds a claim-specific overlay: nine further criteria that must return meets, with no gap permitted. It is not a seventh Tier 1 criterion, and it is not a score.

  • durable-removals
  • permanence
  • reversal-risk
  • accurate-accounting
  • crediting-programme
  • registry-tracking
  • unique-attribution
  • transparency
  • sustainable-development-benefit

The assigned removal role, outcome year, retirement, lifecycle emissions, monitoring, remediation and verification evidence must all be complete before delivery. Every removal used for counterbalancing must also be one that needs no conservatism adjustment at all, and that is tested inside the overlay rather than left to delivery.

What each of those criteria asks →

Why the category is marked provisional

Two of its conditions are adopted provisionally: the positive sustainable-development benefit floor for an ISO-only counterbalancing removal, which is our own additional requirement rather than an ISO one, and the rule that a removal needing any conservatism adjustment cannot be used.

Before the category becomes operational, both will be tested against a representative sample of direct air capture, bioenergy with carbon capture, enhanced weathering, biochar and nature-based removals. The validation will record pass rates, evidence gaps, affected supply and any material effect on price. Until it is complete, no portfolio is represented as finally eligible for Category 4 under those two conditions, and we will say so rather than sell around it.

Article 6 / Corresponding adjustments

Do you need a corresponding adjustment?

Almost certainly not, and there is enough confusion about this in the market that it is worth setting out plainly. A corresponding adjustment is a government-to-government mechanism, and the requirement belongs to a different market from the one most of our clients buy in.

When a host country authorises a credit for export, it adds those tonnes back onto its own national ledger and can no longer count them toward its Nationally Determined Contribution. The receiving country can then count them toward its own NDC instead. The purpose is to stop two countries counting the same reduction toward two national targets.

That is the problem it solves. It is not a quality mark, and it says nothing about whether a project is additional, permanent or well run.

As at September 2026. Where a framework is revised, the position is reassessed and your evidence pack records the position in force at the date of assessment.
Framework Is a corresponding adjustment required?
ISO 14068-1 — the standard a neutrality claim is made against No. It requires you to disclose whether one has been applied, not to obtain one.
ISO/DIS 14060 — organisational net-zero claims No. §12.4.6 states expressly that they are not required. Disclose whether one applies and, where relevant, whether the removal also contributes to the host country’s NDC.
SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0 No, though it recommends prioritising correspondingly adjusted removals for residual counterbalancing where they are available.
VCMI No. Its position is that adjustments address double counting between national accounting systems, and that voluntary corporate reporting sits outside national accounting.
Compliance markets — international aviation under CORSIA, and governments buying toward their own targets Yes. This is the one place a corresponding adjustment is genuinely mandatory.

One country against another

Two nations counting the same reduction toward two different Nationally Determined Contributions. This is the problem corresponding adjustments were built to solve, and it is a problem between national ledgers.

A country against a company

The host country counts the reduction toward its NDC and you count it toward a corporate claim. This overlap is real and it applies to your credits — but a national target and a corporate claim are separate ledgers, kept for different purposes, held to different standards and read by different audiences. Neither is diminished by the other.

That is why none of the frameworks your claim is actually made against requires an adjustment to remove the overlap. What they require is that you disclose it. An adjustment is required where double claiming would produce double counting between national ledgers, and a corporate contribution claim is not one of those cases.

The SBTi goes further and recommends prioritising mitigation that closes financing gaps in lower income countries in support of their Nationally Determined Contributions. Funding NDC delivery in those countries is a deliberate feature of a well-directed portfolio rather than a defect in it.

If you do need an adjusted credit, what you need is a compliance-protected credit: one the host government has formally authorised for export and backed with a corresponding adjustment, so the tonne can be counted toward another country’s target or against a compliance obligation. It is the only category that carries an adjustment as standard, and authorised supply of this kind is thin. Ask us. Availability moves, and we would rather tell you what can genuinely be sourced than sell you something adjacent.

What we do about it. We record the corresponding adjustment status of every credit we deliver and state it in your evidence pack, including where none applies — which is what ISO 14068-1 and the ISO 14060 claim schedule actually ask of you. We do not charge a premium for an attribute your claim does not require.

Wording / Illustrative only

What the language actually looks like.

These show the type of wording the service is designed to support. They are not universal approved claims. Final wording is prepared for your reporting boundary, claim period, emissions position, reduction performance and assurance requirements.

The shortest form we would defend

Those are the reporting form. Where a claim has to survive in a footer, a slide or a signature block, this is the shortest version we would put our name to.

“Carbon neutral for [defined subject] during [period] in accordance with ISO 14068-1. We reduced emissions and made a beyond value-chain mitigation contribution by retiring verified contribution credits for the unabated balance. [link]”

Illustrative short form · not an approved claim ISO 14068-1

It is not shorter because it cannot be. It carries the subject and the period, which ISO 14068-1 requires a neutrality claim to define, and it states the basis: reductions first, then a contribution settled by retiring credits.

UK advertising guidance from the ASA and CAP treats unqualified carbon-neutral claims as a specific risk and expects the basis of the claim to appear close to it. The CMA Green Claims Code applies the same expectation more widely. A six-word footer saying “carbon neutral” and nothing else is the claim both are aimed at.

The shorter the public claim, the closer its explanatory disclosure needs to be. A short form should point to the full statement rather than stand alone, and the link should lead directly to that statement and its supporting disclosure. Spell out beyond value-chain mitigation on first use in your own reporting, so the term does not arrive cold.

Your evidence pack supplies the underlying facts and a claim-specific statement of what the credits do and do not support. You and your assurance provider remain responsible for the final public wording.

What arrives in the evidence pack →

Next step

Specify your portfolio.

Tell us the claim you intend to make, or tell us what you are trying to say and we will tell you which route supports it. Sourcing starts once the category is agreed, not before.

Specify your portfolio → How we screen