Toitū proudly offers New Zealand-based carbon credits. We aim to provide locally issued carbon credits that meet international standards for credible offsetting in the voluntary carbon market.
Currently, few New Zealand-issued credits meet these emerging global standards - a reflection of how quickly international regulations are evolving. Toitū is actively engaging with New Zealand policymakers and project developers to accelerate local supply that meets these higher benchmarks.
While national policy evolves, we’re leading the way - this guide shows how our New Zealand carbon credit offer is progressing into the future, and how our rigorous due diligence process gives clients confidence in the local carbon projects they're supporting today.
How Toitū started out: Compliance Market Credits
Historically, Toitū-certified organisations have used New Zealand Units (NZUs) issued by the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative (PFSI) and Post-1989 Forest Schemes (PP89). At the time, these units played a key role in supporting domestic forestry projects and helping organisations meet their emissions targets.
However, these schemes were created for use in the compliance market - not the voluntary market, where claims are held to rising international standards. As expectations around environmental integrity increase, some aspects of these units can no longer show alignment with evolving global best practice, especially expectations around permanence, additionality, and transparency.
Where we're headed: ICVCM verified carbon credits
Toitū is committed to only offering credits that meet the highest international standards - including the Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) set by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM). These principles ensure each unit represents a real, verified, and additional climate benefit and can stand up to public and regulatory scrutiny in this space.
We’re actively working to establish good access to New Zealand-based carbon projects that are assessed against ICVCM standards and look forward to sharing more about our progress soon. You can sign up to our newsletter to receive updates about this.
Where we are now: Toitū's robust due diligence process
Today, very few NZ-based units are tagged or assessed against ICVCM principles. But that’s changing. We’re actively monitoring the voluntary carbon market for CCP-tagged credits and we will transition to using them exclusively once they are readily available.
In the mid-term, Toitū checks the integrity of New Zealand credits against a thorough due diligence process created to ensure they meet the highest science-aligned standards available. This means that we do still permit the use of select New Zealand credits, including PFSI and PP89 - those that pass ICROA standards. It also means that we have fewer options for New Zealand credits, but clients can have confidence in the quality of those we do.
Being increasingly selective about local credits also sends a clear signal to policymakers: New Zealand deserves access to climate finance that meets the same high standards we expect of any credit, from anywhere in the world.
Carbon credit thought leadership series
This article is part of Toitū’s thought leadership series on carbon credits - exploring what integrity looks like in today’s voluntary carbon market, why credible offsetting matters, and how Toitū is helping shape a high-standard future for New Zealand and beyond. Read the full series below.