Change Climate (formerly Climate Neutral) recently introduced updated rules for brands seeking their 2025 Climate Label certification.

Big picture, we think the new rules are great: they do more than ever before to emphasize the importance of reducing your own emissions, they raise the bar on how to use carbon credits in a high-integrity way, and they encourage support for policy advocacy and nascent technologies like carbon removal. But they’re also new, meaning they require you to relearn how to seek certification and rethink how to spend on climate.

We know you’re busy, so we have summarized the new standard for you and designed an exclusive Change Climate compliant carbon credit portfolio that enables you to satisfy their requirements while still mitigating 100% of your emissions.

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‍The new rules

Change Climate’s new certification standard introduces stricter measurement, verification, and investment guidelines. The main update to the new standard is a required Climate Transition Budget (CTB), calculated as a multiple of a company’s annual emissions, that is to be directed towards climate investments. This amount must be invested in qualifying projects across Value Chain Abatement (VCA) within a company’s own value chain, expenditures Beyond Value Chain (BVC), and Other Contributions to the net-zero transition. Because the budget is set in minimum dollars to spend on the Net Zero Transition rather than tonnes of carbon to offset, companies are no longer incentivized to merely seek the cheapest available carbon credits, regardless of quality.

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For Certification Year 2025, a company’s CTB is calculated by multiplying the company’s total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by a Carbon Fee of $15 per tonne. The Carbon Fee–and therefore the CTB–are scheduled to increase each year that follows.

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‍Spend Requirements‍

The new rules also require that companies spend their CTB in specific ways. 

Companies:

1. Must spend at least 100% of their CTB on qualifying activity of some kind;
2. Must spend at least 10% of their CTB on VCA (in their value chain);
3. May spend up to 15% on other contributions to the net zero transition like policy advocacy, hiring consultants, or subscribing to carbon accounting software; and

Expenditures on carbon credits and other similar instruments (BVC) have no minimum or maximum but can count for up to 90% of qualifying CTB spend.

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‍Here’s an example of what this could look like: In 2025, if your company has measured 1,000 tonnes of emissions, your CTB = 1,000*$15 = $15,000. The breakdown of your spend could look like this:

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Make your BVC investments with ease

At CNaught, we have made it simple to follow Change Climate’s guidance for BVC investments. That guidance includes both requirements and recommendations. On the requirements side, for instance, Change Climate does not permit credits from certain older vintages or from project types that the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market has rejected. Change Climate also recommends following “the portfolio allocation principles outlined in the Oxford Principles for Net-Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting” and using “third-party project ratings from providers including BeZero, CalyxGlobal, Renoster, and Sylvera.” 

Our portfolio is specifically designed to meet all of Change Climate’s requirements and track their recommendations. The portfolio embodies the Oxford Principles in allocation across avoided emissions, conservation, and nature-based removal; it is diversified across project type and geography; and it contains only credits rated highly by a third-party ratings agency: Calyx Global, BeZero, Renoster, or Sylvera. 

Change Climate further recognizes the importance of “encouraging supply-side growth for high quality projects, emerging methodologies, and early-stage CDR markets.”

Consistent with their recommendation, for every tonne you purchase, CNaught will invest a dollar on your behalf in the world’s leading carbon removal effort, the Frontier Offtake Portfolio.

Finally, we’ve specially priced our portfolio at $11.25 a tonne. This means that even if you spend 25% of your CTB within your value chain and on other allowable contributions, you’ll still be able to mitigate 100% of your unabated emissions.

It’s meeting your Change Climate obligations, made easy.

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Talk to the CNaught team to learn about your portfolio customization options.