Verra’s own review found that 15.2 million of the 26.8 million credits issued to Zimbabwe’s Kariba forest project were never earned. Nearly all of the invalid credits were sold or used, buyers keep the “carbon neutral” claims they bought, and the bill to fix it remains unpaid.
The world’s largest carbon-credit registry has told the market that more than half of the credits issued to one of its flagship forest projects were excess. It has also said that the credits already used to make products, flights and fuel “carbon neutral” will stay valid. More than a year after the registry’s accounting findings, and four months after its final safeguards review, press coverage as of July 2026 described the requested compensation as unresolved.
The project is Kariba REDD+, a forest-protection scheme in northern Zimbabwe. Verra, the Washington-based nonprofit that runs the Verified Carbon Standard, found in September 2025 that the project’s baseline overstated expected deforestation, producing 15,220,520 excess credits out of 26,822,953 issued. Of those, 10,321,531 had already been retired by buyers. A second review, released June 30, 2026, found no evidence of rule breaches in three areas, but only on the historical record available to auditors. A September 2026 audit of the audit system raises the broader question of how the problem passed through so many checks.
What Verra’s Own Numbers Show
According to Verra’s September 2025 carbon accounting review, the project had 41,955,689 verified emission reductions when it was suspended in October 2023, following a New Yorker investigation. The breakdown, per Verra:
- 26,822,953 issued as tradable credits
- 10,083,263 verified but never issued, now permanently removed
- 5,049,473 placed in the registry’s insurance buffer pool, now cancelled as a precaution
- 15,220,520 deemed excess, of which 10,321,531 are retired and 4,898,989 remain active in other accounts
Verra concluded that actual deforestation in the reference area was significantly lower than the project had projected. Because credits are issued against avoided deforestation, a baseline that overstates the threat overstates the credits. Carbon Herald reported that the excess amounts to roughly 57 percent of the credits issued, and that the project reportedly generated more than $100 million in revenue. Independent studies cited in that report suggested the true over-issuance could be far larger than Verra’s figure.
The project’s developer, Carbon Green Investments (CGI), withdrew the project from the registry during the review. That removed the usual remedy. In the ordinary course, Verra can correct a baseline error by deducting from future issuances. With no future monitoring periods, nothing remains to deduct from. Verra’s September 2025 statement said it would ask CGI to buy and cancel an equal number of credits, and invited holders of the unretired credits to cancel them voluntarily.
Who Bought the Credits, and What They Said
Retired credits are the ones already spent on marketing claims. Trellis reported in October 2025 that buyers of Kariba credits included:
- Volkswagen: more than 1 million credits retired in 2021 and 2022, at least some used to certify its ID. Buzz vehicles in Europe as carbon neutral
- Nespresso: almost 400,000 credits for a 2021 carbon-neutral claim on coffee capsules
- ProxiFuel, a Belgian subsidiary of TotalEnergies: close to 190,000 credits from 2021 to 2023 to offset heating oil emissions
- VistaJet: more than 150,000 credits from 2020 to June 2023 for customers’ travel emissions
Volkswagen spokesperson Ruth Holling told Trellis that the status of retired units would not change and that no action was needed from those who had retired them. TotalEnergies stopped using Kariba credits after the New Yorker story and asked Verra to cancel the unretired credits it held, according to the same report.
Swiss broker South Pole, which co-developed the project with CGI, says it has had no involvement with the project or its owner since 2023, terminated its agreements in October 2023, and asked Verra to cancel the 2.5 million Kariba credits it held. It describes its role as developer and seller of credits rather than operator, and says it never held an equity stake.
The Bill Nobody Has Paid
CarbonPlan, a research nonprofit, analyzed the remedy in October 2025 and called compliance by CGI unlikely. Its authors estimated that replacing at least 10 million credits at roughly $3.60 each would cost about $37 million. They noted that Verra entered 2025 with net assets under $24 million, meaning it could not cover the gap itself. Covering Kariba from the registry’s buffer pool of 72 million available credits would consume about 14 percent of it, a step Verra has said it will not take because the buffer exists to cover reversals, not over-issuance.
According to Carbon Herald, CGI responded positively to Verra’s request but asked for a moratorium on the compensation process while it reviews Verra’s assessment. None of the sources reviewed by TIJ reports a deadline or any payment. In its June 30, 2026 release, Verra said VVBs, the independent auditors who validated and verified the project, “could not identify evidence of a breach of Verra’s rules” on trophy hunting, benefit-sharing and financial compliance. Verra also stressed that the auditors could only use evidence available at the time of the original audits, which predated the media allegations, and that CGI’s withdrawal blocked new evidence-gathering. H2 Bulletin noted that the review did not comprehensively address all allegations and that compensation for the over-issuance remained unresolved as of July 3, 2026.
A System Built on Conformity Checks
Kariba is not presented by critics as a one-off. In September 2026, Carbon Market Watch published “Verified but not trusted,” a review of 15 Verra-hosted projects representing about 14.4 percent of voluntary-market credits retired between July 2023 and July 2026. The report counted 88 validation or verification audits by 13 auditors. It found that all 15 projects were approved despite more than 1,600 audit findings, including 483 at the highest severity tier.
The report’s central argument is structural. Verra’s rules direct auditors to check conformance with the standard and methodology rather than the integrity of the climate claim. Developers select and pay their own auditors, and Verra’s revenue, which the report says came more than 95 percent from project levies and fees, is tied to credit issuance. The report also cited ratings from BeZero, Calyx Global and Sylvera: 13 of the 15 projects were rated highly risky and the other two somewhat risky. Verra has published a response to criticism of validation and verification in the voluntary market, and says its December 2025 program update raises the bar on safeguards, benefit-sharing and financial transparency, adding that a project like Kariba seeking registration today “would face a materially higher bar.”
The legal exposure for buyers is already moving through courts. Per Trellis, Apple and BP lost German court cases over the quality of credits behind carbon-neutral claims. In the United States, a class action against Delta Air Lines over its carbon-neutral advertising, first filed in 2023, is continuing after a judge rejected Delta’s motion to dismiss, Skift reported in August 2026. The suit concerns prevented-deforestation credits, and Skift reported Delta spent $280 million on credits from 2020 to 2022. Nothing in the sources reviewed ties Delta to Kariba, and Delta says the suit lacks merit.
What Remains Unknown
Three questions are open. First, whether CGI will fund the replacement of 15.2 million credits, or whether the cost will go unrecovered. Second, whether buyers that publicly relied on Kariba credits for “carbon neutral” claims will face the kind of litigation already pending against other companies. Third, whether the 15-project sample in the Carbon Market Watch report reflects the wider registry, as its authors argue, or a group that does not represent the wider market.
What the record shows is narrower and harder to dispute. The registry itself found that more than half of one project’s credits were excess, the credits were sold, a large share were retired, and the registry’s own remedy depends on a developer that has left the system. Carbon Green Investments’ positions are drawn here from published statements as reported by third parties; TIJ did not find public press contact information for the company. Verra, South Pole and Volkswagen statements are cited from their own publications and press coverage.
Featured image: forest near Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Not an image of the Kariba project area.
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