Every offset considered for the 360° Impact Portfolio is screened against six criteria, drawn directly from the framework comparison. Each criterion carries a simple status — green where it meets our sourcing screen, amber where it needs review, red where it fails, and grey where we have not assessed it or it falls outside scope. The result is a compact strip of six marks that sits against an offset and tells you, at a glance, where it stands and where the open questions are. This page is the legend: what each mark means, and what each colour claims.
The status against each criterion describes one thing: whether, in our judgement, the offset meets the screen we apply before sourcing it for the portfolio. Green does not mean a credit is “good” in some absolute, public sense; it means the criterion meets our sourcing requirement. Red does not publish a verdict on the credit’s intrinsic quality; it means the offset fails our screen and we would not source it without resolution. This distinction is deliberate and it matters: we assess credits we may place in the portfolio, so the honest thing to publish is the basis of our decision, not a quality score on a third party’s asset.
That is also why this is not a letter-grade rating. A rating compresses everything into a single confident mark and invites the reader to treat it as a guarantee. The six-criterion strip does the opposite: it keeps the criteria visible and separate, so a reader can see exactly which checks an offset clears and which it does not. One amber among five greens is far more useful than an averaged grade that hides where the doubt sits.
The grey state carries real weight here. Where a criterion has not been assessed, or falls outside the scope of what we screen for a given offset, we show grey rather than guessing. A scheme that manufactures confidence it has not earned is worse than one that admits its limits. Grey is not a failure — it is a precise statement that the question is open.
Each criterion resolves to one of four states. The colours are drawn from the SDG palette and assigned a single, fixed meaning — so a colour never means two things.
The criterion satisfies our sourcing requirement on the evidence available. No flag.
A question or partial concern exists. The offset is not ruled out, but the point must be resolved before sourcing.
The criterion does not meet our requirement. We would not source the offset without the issue being resolved.
Not yet assessed, or outside the scope of what we screen for this offset. An open question, shown honestly.
Status colours: meets = SDG health #4C9F38 · review = SDG energy #FCC30B · fails = SDG poverty #E5243B · not assessed = #c8c4ba. The glyph mark stays neutral; only the tile fill carries the status.
The six criteria are drawn directly from the framework comparison table, grouped so each maps to a single mark. Each answers one question. The glyph identifies the criterion; the tile colour, when shown against an offset, carries its status.
Is the claimed tonnage real, measurable, and conservatively counted?
Covers accurate carbon accounting, conservative baselines, ex-post issuance, and leakage. The check is whether the reported reductions or removals are supported — not over-stated through an inflated baseline or unaccounted leakage. This is the criterion most often behind a review flag.
Would the reductions have happened anyway, without carbon finance?
Covers additionality of the project’s activities — financial, regulatory, and common-practice tests — together with over-crediting risk. A credit that would have occurred under business-as-usual is not one a buyer can claim, however accurately it was measured.
Will the avoided or removed emissions last?
Covers reversal risk and the safeguards against it — buffer pools, make-good mechanisms — alongside natural and people-related risks to durability. Avoidance credits and durable removals sit very differently here, and the status reflects that.
Is the credit uniquely issued, retired, and free of double counting?
Covers public registry listing, unique serial numbers, permanent retirement, traceability, and protection against double issuance or double use — including, where relevant, corresponding-adjustment treatment for the Sovereign Portfolio.
Does the project protect communities and ecosystems, and identify its SDG contributions?
Covers social and environmental safeguards — including free, prior and informed consent — and the project’s mapped SDG and biodiversity co-benefits. Co-benefits are screened on their own merits; a strong co-benefit profile never compensates for a weak quantification or additionality status.
Has an independent body verified the claim, under a recognised programme?
Covers independent third-party verification of the reductions or removals, and certification under a programme that meets recognised eligibility criteria. This is the assurance chain: without it, the other five checks rest on unverified reporting.
Against any offset, the six criteria appear in a fixed order. The pattern of colour tells you the shape of the assessment at a glance — and exactly where the open questions sit.
Properly registered, verified, and well-safeguarded — but an inflated-baseline question on quantification and a failing additionality status. The strip makes the verdict obvious: the paperwork is sound, the carbon claim is not. We would not source this without the additionality issue resolved.
The order is always the same — quantification, additionality, permanence, registry, safeguards, verification — so the eye learns where to look. A strip that is green on registry and verification but amber or red on the left-hand carbon checks is the classic pattern of a credit that is administratively clean but substantively weak: real paperwork, doubtful tonnes. The strip is built to surface exactly that, rather than letting strong procedural marks average away a weak carbon claim.
The screening strip is the summary a buyer sees first; the disclosure pack carries the evidence and reasoning behind every mark. The 30-minute discovery call is the starting point.