A plain-English explainer from the Repricing Carbon series. New here? Start with What Is a Carbon Credit?
Once you start reading carbon market news, the acronyms come fast. REDD+, ARR, IFM, DAC, BECCS. They sound like a secret code. They are just shorthand for the different kinds of projects that make carbon credits. Here is the plain-English tour, grouped the way it finally made sense to me.
Nature-based: working with land and forests
REDD+ (avoided deforestation)
Paying to keep a standing forest from being cut down. The “+” covers related work like sustainable forest management. Powerful when real, and the category most often accused of inflated baselines.
ARR (reforestation)
Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation. Planting trees where they were lost or absent. A removal, since new trees pull carbon out of the air as they grow.
IFM (better forest management)
Improved Forest Management. Changing how a working forest is harvested so it stores more carbon, for example by logging less or waiting longer between cuts.
Soil and blue carbon
Farming methods that store carbon in soil, and the protection of coastal systems like mangroves and seagrass that hold huge amounts of it.
Community and energy: changing what people use
Clean cookstoves
Replacing smoky open fires with efficient stoves. Cuts emissions and improves health, though credit volumes here depend heavily on honest assumptions about usage.
Renewable energy
Wind, solar, and hydro projects. Once a market mainstay, now under scrutiny because in many places clean energy is built anyway, which undercuts additionality.
Engineered: building the carbon back out
DAC (direct air capture)
Machines that pull carbon dioxide straight out of the air and store it underground. Very durable, very expensive, still small in scale.
Biochar
Heating plant waste into a stable charcoal that locks carbon in soil for centuries. One of the more affordable durable removals available today.
BECCS
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage. Burn biomass for energy, then capture and bury the carbon released. A removal with an energy byproduct.
Enhanced rock weathering
Spreading crushed rock that naturally absorbs carbon dioxide as it breaks down. Early days, but very long-lasting storage.
A useful habit: when you meet a project type, ask two questions. Is it avoiding emissions or removing them? And how long will the carbon stay put? Those two answers tell you most of what you need.
Why the type matters so much
Project type drives almost everything else: the price, the durability, the typical risks, and how easy the credit is to defend. A REDD+ credit and a direct air capture credit are both “one ton,” but they live in completely different worlds of cost and certainty. Knowing the type is the first move in sizing up any credit.
Where to go next
That is the field of projects. To see why these types carry such different price tags, read why carbon credits cost what they cost, and to understand the avoid-versus-remove split that runs through all of them, see avoidance vs removal.
A note from the author. I am a writer who cares about sustainability, and when it comes to carbon credits I am still very much a learner. There are a lot of people who know this market far better than I do, and I have real respect for the work they have put into building it. If I got something wrong in here, I apologize, and I would genuinely like to hear about it so I can learn and correct it. I am writing this to start a conversation, not to have the last word. That is the whole point. This is a learning experience for me too, and the conversation is what moves all of us forward. If this piece helped you, share it. If you see it differently, even better. Let’s talk.