Carbon Certifications

Accredited third parties rigorously examine our carbon projects—and the carbon offsets they produce—to ensure that they meet established methods for greenhouse gas reductions.

All carbon offsets are or will be verified and listed in an independent registry to ensure that each offset is unique and sold only once. Also, we as an organization are a Certified B Corp and a proud Public Benefit Corporation.

Help Build Carbon Project Certifications

We screen our Help Build™ carbon projects to make sure they meet internationally recognized carbon standards and demonstrate financial additionality. Our screening confirms that the carbon reductions are genuine and the project needed carbon offset funding to be built.

Because Help Build™ carbon offsets are purchased as “future stream”—the projected reductions are sold up front—we have established a buffer pool of offsets that that we don’t sell. This buffer pool is reserved to “back up” project performance, and it is designed so that we are likely to retire more tons that we have actually sold.

Finally, because we work directly with project developers and owners, we have an unusually high level of oversight and community involvement. Often, we provide business customers with the opportunity to visit project sites and meet other project participants. We are proud to know the projects that we sell very deeply.

How certification works:

Step 1: Native Screening
When we consider a new carbon reduction project, our supply team conducts an extensive background check. We calculate the emissions that will be reduced, evaluate financial additionality, and establish a relationship with the project through site visits and discussions with project participants. If the project meets Native’s requirements, we move on to the “validation” stage.

Step 2: Third-Party Validation
Every potential Help Build™ project is reviewed by a qualified third party, who evaluates whether it uses recognized and reliable methods for reducing greenhouse gases. If the project method is correct, the project is then “validated” by that independent reviewer.

Validation ensures that the project:

1. Meets the requirements of the standard
2. Correctly calculates and monitors future carbon reductions through accepted methods

Step 3: Third-Party Verification
Once the project is in operation, an accredited third party verifies that the greenhouse gas reductions have occurred. They review the actual data of the project’s operations—energy production, gas flows, and so on—to determine the number of tons that were reduced and, as a result, are issued by the carbon standard as carbon offsets.

Verification ensures that the greenhouse gas reductions have genuinely occurred. The schedule for verification varies based on several factors, including cost and project size.

Carbon Offset Standards

We validate all our carbon offsets to one of the following standards:
Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, Climate Action Reserve, American Carbon Registry, Plan Vivo, Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance

Native has and will continue to ensure that no discrimination or sexual harassment occurs in the project design or implementation, towards all project participants and identified stakeholders.