A working reference to how India’s carbon market is structured, what is usable today, and what is still being built. Last verified 25 August 2026 against the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s Indian Carbon Market portal.
The information needed to answer one simple question — can this activity earn carbon credits in India? — sits across a scheme notification, rules under a separate Act, a sector memorandum, a methodology library, a verifier register, CERC regulations and a portal. This page holds them together.
How to read this page
Every claim below carries a source. I mark them so you can weigh them:
- [ICM] — verified directly against the official Indian Carbon Market portal on the date shown. Treat as authoritative.
- [Secondary] — from a credible third party such as ICAP or a ministry notification reported elsewhere, but not re-verified against the primary source. Treat with more caution.
- [EU] — from European Commission material.
If a figure matters to a decision you are making, follow the link and check it yourself. Where I got something wrong, it is recorded in the corrections log at the foot of this page.
First, three things that get conflated
Almost every confusion in this market traces back to treating these as one thing. They are not.
| Who takes part | How reductions are quantified | |
|---|---|---|
| CCTS compliance mechanism Government scheme, mandatory | Designated obligated entities in notified sectors. No choice. | No project methodologies. Greenhouse gas emission intensity targets, with a monitoring plan per entity. |
| CCTS offset mechanism Government scheme, voluntary to join | Non-obligated entities that choose to register a project. | Approved project methodologies — the twelve listed below. |
| International voluntary carbon market Not a government scheme | Anyone, via independent standards. | Those standards’ own methodologies. Nothing to do with CCTS. |
Two consequences worth holding onto:
- “Voluntary” here means voluntary to participate, not the voluntary carbon market. The CCTS offset mechanism is a government scheme. Credits issued under it are instruments of that scheme; they are not Verra, Gold Standard or any independent standard’s credits, and the two are not interchangeable.
- If you are an obligated entity looking for “the methodology for my sector”, there isn’t one. Compliance runs on intensity targets and monitoring plans, published under the compliance mechanism. The methodology library below is for offset projects only. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026]
What is published and usable today
Everything in this section is the offset mechanism.
Twelve approved methodologies under the offset mechanism, covering five sectors. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026] — source
| Sector | Methodology | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | Grid-connected electricity generation from renewable sources | BM EN01.001 |
| Energy | Hydrogen production from electrolysis of water | BM EN01.002 |
| Energy | Electricity and heat generation from biomass | BM EN01.003 |
| Industries | Energy efficiency and fuel switching for industrial facilities | BM IN02.001 |
| Industries | Hydrogen production using methane extracted from biogas | BM IN02.002 |
| Waste | Landfill methane recovery | BM WA03.001 |
| Waste | Flaring or use of landfill gas | BM WA03.002 |
| Waste | Production of Compressed Bio-gas (CBG) | BM WA03.003 |
| Forestry | A/R of degraded mangrove habitats | BM FR05.001 |
| Forestry | A/R of lands except wetlands | BM FR05.002 |
| Agriculture | Methane recovery from livestock and manure management | BM AG04.001 |
| Agriculture | Emission reduction through improved rice cultivation | BM AG04.002 |
Seventeen methodological tools are also published — twelve non-forestry (additionality, baselines, leakage, flaring, biomass, solid waste, composting) and five forestry (carbon stocks, dead wood and litter, soil organic carbon, displacement of pre-project activity). [ICM, 25 Aug 2026] — source
Detailed procedures are published for both the offset mechanism and the compliance mechanism, the latter including a monitoring plan instruction and template for obligated entities. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026]
If your activity maps to one of those twelve methodologies, you can proceed now. That is the most actionable sentence on this page.
What is in consultation — and why you should respond
Seven methodologies are open for stakeholder input, with comment templates published alongside them. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026] — source
- Emission reduction by shore-side electricity supply system — Energy
- Recovery and recycling of materials from end-of-life vehicles — Waste
- Mass Rapid Transit System — Transport (BM TR06.00X)
- Cooking energy — Energy
- Accelerated carbon mineralisation using reactive industrial waste — CCUS (BM CCUS10.001)
A methodology is written once and then governs project economics for a decade — baseline approach, monitoring burden, what counts as additional. If your sector appears above, responding to the consultation is probably the highest-return unpaid hour available to you in this market.
The two mechanisms
CCTS runs a compliance mechanism (greenhouse gas emission intensity targets for designated obligated entities, who earn or surrender Carbon Credit Certificates against them) and an offset mechanism (non-obligated entities register projects and earn credits for verified reductions). Each has its own detailed procedure on the portal. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026]
The two are administered separately, and the ACVA register lists compliance mechanism sectors and offset mechanism sectors as distinct columns for each accredited agency — so accreditation under one does not imply the other. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026] — source
Note added 25 Aug 2026: an earlier version of this page stated flatly that offset credits cannot be surrendered against a compliance obligation. That reflects my understanding of the scheme design, but I have not been able to verify it against a primary document, so I am no longer asserting it as established fact. Check the detailed procedures before building a business case either way — the distinction is material to whether offset supply can meet compliance demand.
Compliance sectors
Nine sectors are designated for transition into the compliance mechanism; seven have GEI targets notified — aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali and pulp & paper (October 2025), then petroleum refining, petrochemicals and textiles (January 2026). Iron and steel is at draft stage, with a proposed amendment published 26 June 2026 covering 255 companies. Fertiliser is pending. [Secondary — ICAP ETS Map and reporting on the MoEFCC draft; not re-verified against a primary notification]
Figures circulating for the number of obligated entities vary depending on whether they count notified or designated sectors. I am not quoting one until I can source it primarily.
Verification capacity
The ACVA register is maintained by BEE, not on the ICM portal, and it is the authoritative list: List of Accredited Carbon Verification Agency empanelled under CCTS. 15 agencies are empanelled (ACVA001–ACVA015), register last updated 14 July 2026. [BEE, retrieved 25 Aug 2026]
Accreditation is granted per mechanism and per sector, and is either Provisional (one year) or Final (five years). That structure is what matters for planning, not the headline count.
Accredited for the offset mechanism — 5 of the 15
| Agency | Cert. | Status | Valid to | Offset sectors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bureau Veritas India | ACVA002 | Final | 02-03-2031 | Energy · Industries · Waste · Agriculture · Forestry |
| TUV India | ACVA003 | Final | 16-04-2031 | Industries · Agriculture · Transport |
| KBS Certification Services | ACVA006 | Final | 16-04-2031 | Energy · Industries · Waste · Agriculture · Forestry |
| VKU Certification | ACVA001 | Provisional | 02-03-2027 | Energy · Industries · Waste · Agriculture · Forestry |
| Earthood Services | ACVA004 | Provisional | 16-04-2027 | Energy · Industries · Waste · Agriculture · Forestry |
Three hold Final accreditation, two Provisional. Bureau Veritas is accredited for both mechanisms. Note that TUV India is the only agency accredited for Transport offset projects — a sector whose methodology is still in consultation, so accreditation is running ahead of the methodology there.
Accredited for the compliance mechanism — 11 of the 15
Bureau Veritas (Final, both mechanisms) plus ten provisionally accredited agencies: PGS Energy Services, Encon Sustainability, Energy Audit Services, Operative Save Urja Solution, Eco Energy Solution, FICCI, Namdhari ECO Energies, East Coast Sustainable, NIN Energy India, and the Confederation of Indian Industry. Sector coverage varies by agency and includes aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali, iron and steel, petrochemical, petroleum refinery, pulp and paper, textile and fertilizer.
Two things stand out. Capacity has grown quickly — the register ran from ACVA001 in March 2026 to ACVA015 by late June 2026. And compliance verification is being built out faster than offset verification, which follows the sequencing: obligated entities have deadlines, offset projects do not.
Recommendation: check the register for your specific mechanism and sector before building a timeline. An agency accredited for compliance in your sector cannot necessarily verify your offset project, and most current accreditations are Provisional with one-year validity — so confirm the agency you plan to use is still accredited when you need them.
The trading layer
CERC has published the Terms and Conditions for Purchase and Sale of Carbon Credit Regulations, 2026. The power exchanges named on the portal are IEX, HPX and PXIL. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026] — source
Public registers: what is and is not populated yet
This matters for anyone sizing the market, so it is worth stating precisely. As at 25 August 2026: [ICM]
| Register | State |
|---|---|
| Registered Projects | No entries yet |
| Listed Projects | One entry, open for stakeholder consultation |
| Statistics | Marked “Coming Soon” |
| Article 6 | Marked “Coming Soon” |
The portal homepage separately displays two counters, Compliance Registrations and Offset Registrations, without a label describing what they count. Given that the Registered Projects register is not yet populated, these should not be read as project counts, and I would not use them for market sizing. If you need project-level data for diligence, ask BEE directly. [ICM, 25 Aug 2026]
Bringing public registers online in stages is normal for infrastructure this new — procedures, methodologies and tools first, project data as projects arrive.
Article 6
India has authorised a small number of activities for international cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement; authorisation carries corresponding adjustment obligations, which is why the list is deliberately short. The portal’s Article 6 section is marked “Coming Soon” as at 25 August 2026, so I am not quoting a count here. [Secondary; portal section not yet live]
Where CBAM meets this
CBAM’s definitive phase began 1 January 2026, with the first annual declaration covering 2026 imports due 30 September 2027. The charge rises from a low share of embedded emissions to 100% by 2034 as EU free allocation is withdrawn, and consignments under 50 tonnes a year fall outside it. [EU — European Commission CBAM material; not re-verified today]
Article 9 lets an importer deduct a carbon price already paid in the country of production. The EU’s draft implementing regulation of 13 May 2026 names the United Kingdom, China and California. India is not currently on that list. [EU — draft implementing regulation; not re-verified today]
Two structural points follow. CCTS is intensity-based, so converting an intensity obligation into a CBAM-legible effective price per tonne is itself unresolved. And recognition removes part of the bill rather than most of it while the domestic and EU prices remain far apart.
Practical consequence: do not wait for recognition to start measuring. Absent verified installation-level data, CBAM assesses you on default values pegged to worst-performer benchmarks — so if you are more efficient than the default assumes, not measuring costs you money immediately, whatever happens with Article 9. Full analysis: CBAM: India’s problem is a data problem before it is a carbon problem.
Start here
- Can your project become a carbon project in India? A practical test
- What qualifies as a carbon project?
- What is a carbon methodology?
- Additionality in carbon offsets: why it matters
- How to create carbon project documentation (PDD)
Sources
Primary. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s Indian Carbon Market portal is the authoritative source for everything on this page marked [ICM], and should be your first stop for anything official:
- indiancarbonmarket.gov.in — the portal
- Offset mechanism — procedures, approved methodologies, methodologies in consultation, tools
- Compliance mechanism — procedures, monitoring plan instruction and template
- ACVA register — accredited verification agencies by mechanism and sector
- List of Accredited Carbon Verification Agency empanelled under CCTS — BEE’s register, the authoritative list (HTML; a PDF version also exists but read the HTML)
- ACV Agency accreditation — application form, procedure and eligibility criteria, applications open
- Regulations — CERC trading regulations
- Listed projects and registered projects
Secondary. Where the portal does not yet publish something, I have used the ICAP ETS Map for India, reporting on MoEFCC notifications and draft amendments, and European Commission material for CBAM. These are marked [Secondary] or [EU] inline. They are credible but they are not the primary record, and I say so rather than blurring the difference.
Where I am not quoting a number at all, it is because I could not source it primarily and did not think a secondary figure was worth the risk of being wrong. That will change as the portal’s registers come online.
Corrections log
This page is maintained, which means it is sometimes wrong and then fixed. Everything corrected is recorded here rather than quietly edited.
| Date | Correction |
|---|---|
| 25 Aug 2026 | Carbon capture. Earlier text said CCUS had neither an approved methodology nor an accredited verifier. Incorrect — a draft methodology (BM CCUS10.001, accelerated carbon mineralisation using reactive industrial waste) is open for stakeholder consultation. Corrected. |
| 25 Aug 2026 | Verification agency counts — corrected twice in one day. This page first said 15 agencies with 5 offset-accredited and 3 Final. I then “corrected” that to 2 agencies after an automated read of BEE’s PDF returned only the first two rows. The original figures were right. BEE’s HTML register, last updated 14 July 2026, lists 15 agencies (ACVA001–ACVA015): 5 accredited for the offset mechanism, of which 3 hold Final accreditation. Restored and expanded with the full breakdown. The lesson, recorded here because it is the useful part: a truncated extract is more dangerous than no data, because it looks like data. |
| 25 Aug 2026 | Offset credits and compliance. Earlier text asserted that offset credits cannot be surrendered against a compliance obligation. Downgraded to an open question pending a primary source. |
| 25 Aug 2026 | Obligated entity count. Earlier text quoted a figure for entities carrying an obligation. Removed pending primary verification. |
| 25 Aug 2026 | Sourcing. Every claim now carries a source marker and date. Prompted by a reader pointing out that the official portal existed and I had not cited it. |
Maintained by Richard N. Bright. I am CEO of Carbon Registry India, a non-profit carbon standard and an initiative of NCCF, and I advise organisations working in climate and ESG technology. This page is written for the ecosystem rather than for any one participant in it; where I have a commercial interest in a subject I say so. Corrections are welcome and credited — if a figure here has moved or is wrong, tell me and it goes in the log above.
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I maintain a working reference on India’s carbon market — which CCTS sectors are notified, which are actually operable, how many methodologies and accredited verifiers exist, and where CBAM stands. Subscribe and I will tell you when those facts change. No fixed schedule, and nothing sent for the sake of sending it.