Horizontal Integration and [non-State] Regulatory Expansion: Voluntary Carbon Offset Certifications and the Challenge of Jurisdictional Diversity

This article compares Plan Vivo, the Climate Action Reserve, the Gold Standard, and the Verified Carbon Standard, four voluntary carbon offset certifications with divergent performance despite being similar in all aspects but their approach to horizontal integration. The difference in outcome and the rare level of similarity provide an opportunity to examine the role that horizontal integration has to the success of certifications. The analysis suggests that certifications are expansive, as the ability to operate across industry levels and geographies contributes to their success. However, the analysis also shows that jurisdictional rules may hinder a certification’s ability to integrate horizontally. These two findings together suggest that excessive jurisdictional diversity would force certifications to focus on the most promising jurisdictions, which is likely to hurt the [typically poorer] jurisdictions that benefit most from involvement by certifications.