The 360° Impact Portfolio is structured around the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting, revised in February 2024 by the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. These four principles define what credible, net zero-aligned use of carbon credits requires — distinguishing genuine contribution from accounting compensation, and placing emissions reduction unambiguously at the top of the hierarchy. A note on language: the Oxford Principles use the term “offsetting”; the 360° Impact Portfolio applies this framework under a contribution model, in which credits finance real-world climate mitigation beyond the purchaser’s value chain, rather than serving as an accounting offset against reported emissions.
Most carbon credit use today is not net zero aligned. Independent analysis has found systematic deficiencies in voluntary carbon markets, including over-crediting, weak additionality standards, and a persistent failure to shift towards durable carbon removal. The Oxford Principles were developed to correct this, offering a science-based framework for non-state actors — corporations, financial institutions, and civil society — designing credible climate strategies.
The Principles address four interconnected questions: which credits meet integrity requirements, when the composition of a portfolio must shift, how storage durability determines genuine net zero alignment, and how organisations can actively develop the market for high-quality removals rather than simply consume what is currently available.
The Principles are referenced by and consistent with the VCMI Claims Code of Practice, the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles, the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard, and the ISO Net Zero Guidelines. They provide the scientific basis for the portfolio construction logic applied across the 360° Impact Portfolio, and are reviewed and updated as evidence and best practice evolve.
The first principle establishes that emissions reductions are the core component of any credible net zero strategy. It places the mitigation hierarchy at the centre: reduce Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions as deeply as possible before considering any credit use. Every year of delay in initiating reductions diminishes the remaining carbon budget available under Paris Agreement temperature targets and constrains future options.
Where credits are used, the principle sets three non-negotiable criteria. Credits must be measurable, reported, verified, and correctly accounted for. They must be demonstrably additional — the funded activity would not have occurred without the investment, relative to a credible counterfactual baseline. And they must carry a low risk of reversal, with no negative unintended consequences for ecosystems or communities. The ICVCM Core Carbon Principles provide the current reference standard for assessing these criteria at project level.
Transparency is the third component of Principle 1. Organisations must disclose current emissions, accounting practices, transition targets, credit selection criteria, and the verification processes applied to each project. This disclosure obligation runs in parallel with credit investment, not after it. The Oxford Principles explicitly call for strategies to be revised regularly as standards, evidence, and technology evolve. The 360° Impact Portfolio sources only credits assessed against these criteria. All projects are verified under robust third-party methodologies, and registry confirmation of retirement is required before any contribution claim is made.
Most credits available in today’s voluntary carbon market represent emission reductions or avoided emissions. The Oxford Principles acknowledge a role for these in the short to medium term: they can protect carbon stored in vulnerable ecosystems and accelerate the transition to a lower-carbon economy. They are, however, insufficient as a long-term strategy for achieving net zero.
The second principle is unambiguous. By the global net zero date — 2050 at the latest — any credits used to counterbalance residual emissions must come entirely from carbon removal. Emission reduction credits do not extract carbon from the atmosphere. Where residual emissions remain at the net zero date, only genuine removals can produce a durable balance between sources and sinks.
The transition need not be immediate. The Principles recognise that carbon removal projects require time to scale and that high-quality supply currently remains limited. Organisations should progressively increase the share of removal credits in their portfolios, starting now, whilst continuing to direct investment in high-integrity reduction credits as a form of beyond value chain mitigation contribution. The Oxford Principles are explicit that such contributions retain value in their own right, separate from any net zero accounting claim. The 360° Impact Portfolio is structured with this trajectory in mind. The portfolio mix is reported transparently, distinguishing reduction credits from removal credits by project type, and is reviewed annually against evolving supply conditions and best practice.
Removing carbon from the atmosphere is necessary but not sufficient. That carbon must also be stored in a way that keeps it out of the atmosphere on timescales relevant to net zero. The third principle addresses this directly, situating storage types on a continuum of durability and reversal risk rather than a binary short- or long-term classification.
Biological storage — including ecosystem restoration, soil carbon enhancement, and certain nature-based solutions — can provide durable storage when projects are well-governed, adaptively managed, and designed to be resilient to climate shocks. However, factors including changing land use, political instability, and climate change itself all raise the risk that stored carbon will be re-emitted in the short to medium term. The IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions sets out the criteria by which such risks can be assessed, reduced, and monitored over timescales meaningful for net zero.
Geological storage — including direct air capture with geological storage (DACCS) and mineralisation of atmospheric carbon into stable mineral forms — offers a substantially lower risk of reversal on millennial timescales. Supply of these approaches is currently limited and costs remain high. The Oxford Principles are nevertheless clear: significant investment must begin now to reach the thousand-fold increase in durable removal capacity that IPCC scenarios require by 2050. The 360° Impact Portfolio applies storage durability scoring to project selection, consistent with the Oxford Principles’ five-category project taxonomy. Biological removal projects are assessed against IUCN Global Standard criteria and, where applicable, ICVCM Core Carbon Principles requirements for reversal risk management.
The fourth principle recognises that signalling demand is not sufficient. Organisations with the means to do so should actively develop the market for high-quality, durable removals — using their buying power, demand signals, and institutional credibility to drive change that the market will not produce on its own.
Concrete mechanisms include long-term offtake agreements structured to be bankable and investable, analogous to the power purchase agreements that accelerated renewable energy deployment. Such agreements provide project developers with the revenue certainty needed to raise capital efficiently, whilst offering purchasers price stability and credibility. Contracts-for-Difference structures and advanced market commitments are explicitly identified as appropriate instruments. Sector-specific alliances can aggregate demand signals, set consistent standards across value chains, and advocate for stronger regulatory frameworks aligned with net zero science.
Direct support for ecosystem protection and restoration — valued for its social and environmental benefits independently of carbon credit generation — is also explicitly included under Principle 4. Likewise, investment in beyond value chain mitigation that exceeds what is required to counterbalance an organisation’s own residual emissions is positioned as both appropriate and necessary, given equity considerations and the limited capacity of some actors to meet net zero by the global target date. This is the explicit framing adopted by the 360° Impact Portfolio. Credits are purchased as contributions to climate action beyond the purchaser’s value chain. No contribution claim is made that substitutes for, or implies the neutralisation of, the purchaser’s reported emissions inventory.
The model disclosure opposite reflects ISO 14068-1 §11.3(h) requirements and cites the Oxford Principles explicitly, enabling sustainability teams to evidence the science-based framework behind credit selection.
Model disclosure for illustrative purposes only. Exact wording should be reviewed against the organisation’s current VCMI tier alignment and legal sign-off requirements.
The 360° Impact Portfolio is constructed project-by-project against the Oxford Principles framework — with every credit verified, every retirement registered, and every contribution claim grounded in ISO 14068-1 §11.3(h) language.