Most carbon diligence is a form the seller fills in about the seller. Here is what to look at instead: eleven questions that separate a credit you can stand behind from an expensive certificate.
The standard pack asks the developer to describe their own method, vouch for their own additionality, and hand over their own verification report. Every input comes from the party being assessed. It feels thorough and it tests almost nothing.
Diligence that works asks for things that exist whether or not the seller mentions them, and treats anything that can't be produced as a finding rather than a scheduling problem.
Put these to any seller, us included. A good counterparty answers all eleven without needing to book a call.
1. Which physical instrument produced this figure, and when was it last calibrated?
2. Can I see the raw readings rather than a summary?
3. What is the uncertainty range, and how was it arrived at?
A seller who can only offer a modelled estimate is selling a projection. Sometimes worth buying. Price it like one.
4. Who verified this, and how did they end up with the job?
5. Who settles the verifier's invoice?
6. Has this verifier audited this developer before, and how many times?
If the developer picked and paid their own auditor, file the verification as a vendor document, not an independent opinion.
7. How long is it stored for, and what physically holds it there?
8. If it reverses, who takes the loss?
9. Is there a buffer pool, how was it sized, and is the balance published?
The word "permanent" attached to a biological pathway should stop you. Honest sellers give you a duration and a mechanism.
10. Is this credit issued anywhere else, and what in the contract prevents it?
11. Does the host country count it toward its own NDC?
Double-counting is rarely fraud. It is usually two parties with a fair claim and no registry talking to the other. Ask regardless.
Test us
Every answer for every site on Carbonland is already published. If one of the eleven can't be answered straight from the record, tell us. That's a fault on our side.