Beyond value chain mitigation, or BVCM, means a company funding climate action outside its own operations and supply chain.
That can be as straightforward as buying verified carbon credits from a forest, methane or clean-cooking project. It can also mean putting money into a restoration project before verified credits exist, or helping fund newer climate technologies that need capital now if they are going to matter later.
What BVCM does not do is reduce the company’s own Scope 1, 2 or 3 footprint. If a business funds 10,000 tonnes of mitigation elsewhere, those 10,000 tonnes are not deducted from the emissions in its greenhouse-gas inventory.
I think this is a much more useful way to frame corporate climate finance than the old habit of asking whether a company has “offset” its footprint. The offsetting question tries to collapse two quite different pieces of work into one answer. BVCM lets you keep them separate: what are we doing to reduce our own emissions, and what are we prepared to finance beyond them? View SBTi’s guidance.
C Level was founded in 2000 around much the same practical idea: measure the carbon, reduce what can be reduced, then use the remaining climate responsibility to direct funding into nature and communities. The terminology has changed several times since then. The underlying decision has not.
Why would a company use Beyond Value Chain Mitigation?
A company uses BVCM because its own emissions will not fall to zero overnight, while useful climate action outside its value chain does not need to wait.
This is especially obvious with Scope 3. A company may have a credible reduction plan and still depend on suppliers, transport systems, technologies or infrastructure that will take years to change. Those emissions remain in the footprint during that period.
The business then has a choice. It can concentrate entirely on its own reduction pathway and wait, or it can do that work while also financing mitigation elsewhere.
SBTi’s 2024 Above and Beyond report describes two broad purposes for BVCM: delivering more mitigation now and helping scale the solutions that will be needed later. I find that distinction useful because it stops the project discussion becoming a search for one supposedly perfect carbon credit.
Some of the budget may be best spent on mitigation that has already happened and can be independently verified. Some may be more useful before the carbon outcome exists, when a project needs money for land preparation, nurseries, equipment, local teams or monitoring. Those are not weaker and stronger versions of the same purchase. They are different uses of capital.
That matters when a company comes to choose projects, because the right project depends on what the money is meant to achieve.
BVCM can fund verified carbon credits
Carbon credits are one obvious BVCM instrument because they give the buyer a quantified mitigation outcome, an issuance record and, once used, a retirement trail.
For a company that wants to say it supported a specific number of tonnes of verified mitigation, that structure is useful. The project methodology, monitoring, independent verification and registry record can all be checked against the claim.
What I would not do is assume that the presence of a recognised standard settles every question. A project can be well run and certified while the particular tonnes on offer are forecast, reported, issued or verified at different stages. The unit being bought still has to match the claim the company wants to make. Our guide to choosing high-integrity carbon credits goes through that chain project by project.
BVCM can fund projects before carbon credits exist
The other side of BVCM is more interesting to me because it addresses a problem we have seen in nature projects for years: somebody has to finance the work before there is a finished carbon outcome to sell.
CommuniTree in Nicaragua makes that very tangible. C Level has worked with the project since its earliest years, and when we visited in 2023 the work was happening at several stages at once. Native seed was being collected, nurseries were being run, young forests were being established and older plots had reached the point where they were effectively free to grow.
By then the programme had grown from 22 farmers and 40 hectares in 2010 to around 3,300 farmers and 11,000 hectares, and was collecting roughly 30 million native seeds while planting millions of trees across about 4,000 hectares each year. The carbon outcome eventually depends on all of that earlier work. Read what we saw on that visit.
If every corporate climate budget waits for a fully verified tonne before releasing money, somebody else has to carry the project-development risk. That may be the right choice for a buyer that needs an ex-post verified claim. It is not the only sensible use of BVCM.
This is one reason I would not build a BVCM portfolio entirely from mature credits. Where the company has the appetite for it, some of the budget can do more useful work by helping future mitigation happen.
How Beyond Value Chain Mitigation fits with Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions
BVCM sits alongside reductions in Scope 1, 2 and 3. It does not substitute for them or reduce the company’s reported footprint.
Suppose a supplier still accounts for 5,000 tCO₂e in a company’s Scope 3 inventory. If the company buys 5,000 tonnes of carbon credits from a forest project, the supplier line does not become zero.
The company can say two things instead:
- it still has 5,000 tCO₂e associated with that supplier; and
- it has separately financed 5,000 tonnes of mitigation beyond its value chain.
I prefer that approach because it leaves both pieces of work visible. The reduction team still has to deal with the supplier emissions, while the climate-finance programme can stand on its own merits.
SBTi takes the same basic position. Its current BVCM page is explicit that BVCM is additional to value-chain reductions and must not replace or delay them.
This also explains why I am wary of treating BVCM as simply a new name for offsetting. The useful change is not the vocabulary. It is the separation of the two accounts.
BVCM and OER: what changed in 2026?
SBTi’s 2024 BVCM guidance still tells companies how to design a strategy. The new Ongoing Emissions Responsibility framework, or OER, gives companies a formal recognition route under Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0.
The simplest way to think about them is:
BVCM is the strategy. OER is the recognition framework.
| Framework | What it does | How I would use it in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| BVCM | Helps a company decide how much climate action to finance beyond its value chain, what to fund and how to report it | Use it to design the programme |
| OER | Sets formal SBTi recognition levels for companies taking responsibility for ongoing emissions | Use it to test whether the programme fits the new recognition framework |
OER does not make the 2024 BVCM work obsolete. In fact, Above and Beyond is still the better document for thinking through the shape of the portfolio. What changed in June 2026 is that the final Version 2.0 Standard added defined levels of recognition and more specific rules around what counts.
The final OER framework has three levels. Engaged begins at 1% of ongoing emissions. Advanced covers 10% of total ongoing emissions, including 100% of Scope 1 and 2. Leadership is more demanding: for Category A companies it covers 100% of ongoing emissions, applies an $80/tCO₂e contribution budget and also requires verified mitigation equal to the covered emissions. View the criteria.
This is worth checking against the final Standard rather than older consultation papers because the design changed during 2025 and early 2026. Several pre-final documents still circulate online with different thresholds and models. There is more on how all of this affects credit buying in our guide to SBTi carbon credits.
If a company already has a BVCM programme, I would not replace it just because OER now exists. I would put the existing programme next to the final OER criteria and see where it lands. The budget may have been set on a different basis, the emissions coverage may not match the desired recognition level, or the portfolio may contain plenty of valuable future finance but not enough ex-post verified mitigation.
That is a useful audit in its own right, whether or not the company ultimately seeks OER recognition.
How much should a company spend on BVCM?
The BVCM budget should be decided before projects are shortlisted. Otherwise the price of the projects quietly ends up deciding the ambition.
This is one of the habits I would change first.
A project arrives at £20 a tonne, there is £100,000 available, and the answer appears to be 5,000 tonnes. Nothing is obviously wrong with the arithmetic, but nobody has actually decided that 5,000 tonnes represents the right level of responsibility for the company. The available budget and the supplier’s price have made the decision between them.
SBTi’s 2024 guidance deliberately starts elsewhere. It describes three ways to size a BVCM commitment: ton-for-ton, money-for-ton and money-for-money.
| BVCM sizing method | How it works | What I like about it | Where I would be cautious |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ton-for-ton | Finance mitigation equal to a defined share of unabated emissions | Keeps the commitment visibly tied to the footprint | Can create a strong incentive to chase low-cost tonnes |
| Money-for-ton | Apply a carbon price to unabated emissions and create a cash budget | Keeps the budget tied to climate impact while allowing different forms of finance | Depends heavily on the carbon price and the quality of the emissions inventory |
| Money-for-money | Allocate a percentage of revenue or profit | Easy to connect to financial capacity | Can become almost detached from the scale of the company’s emissions |
SBTi’s best-practice approach in Above and Beyond uses money-for-ton: apply a science-based carbon price to 100% of unabated Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, then use that budget across a portfolio of climate action. The report also suggests delivering ex-post mitigation equal to 50% of unabated emissions, but is careful to describe that 50% figure as a rough guide rather than a science-based requirement. View the report.
I would normally start with money-for-ton where the company has a sufficiently reliable footprint. It creates a much better conversation because Procurement is no longer being asked to find the maximum number of credits for a fixed pot. It can ask what combination of outcomes is worth funding.
There is a qualification. If the Scope 3 number is still largely a rough spend-based estimate, applying a high carbon price to it can create a false sense of precision. I would improve the material categories before turning the result into a large annual liability.
BVCM money-for-ton example
Take a company with 100,000 tCO₂e of unabated annual Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
At a carbon price of $75 per tonne, the annual BVCM budget would be $7.5 million.
That does not mean buying 100,000 credits at $75 each. The $75 is being used to determine the size of the climate-finance budget. Once the $7.5 million exists, it can be divided between different types of action. Our guide to internal carbon pricing explains how a price like this is set and where else a company can use it.
SBTi’s own illustrative case studies make the same point. One uses a $75 target-consistent carbon price under a money-for-ton model, while another uses 1.5% of profit under money-for-money. The resulting financial commitments differ substantially because the methods are answering different questions.
That is exactly why I would want the methodology in front of the board. A BVCM figure is not just a procurement number. It expresses the basis on which the company has decided to take responsibility.
BVCM budgets and OER budgets now need to be compared
Once OER is added, there is another calculation to make.
For Advanced recognition, Version 2.0 uses either verified mitigation equal to the covered emissions or a contribution budget based on $20/tCO₂e. Leadership combines a contribution budget of $80/tCO₂e with verified mitigation equal to the covered emissions.
These are not carbon-credit prices. They are OER contribution benchmarks.
A company can therefore have a perfectly coherent BVCM budget that does not line up with the OER level it later decides it wants. I would model both now rather than discover that mismatch after the programme has been approved.
What should a BVCM portfolio actually fund?
A good BVCM portfolio does not have to choose between verified mitigation and future climate action. It does need to be clear about which is which.
This is where I would give much less weight to neat portfolio percentages than to what the company is trying to achieve.
If the objective is to report a quantified mitigation outcome this year, issued and independently verified credits deserve a large share of the budget. If the company wants to help build future removal capacity, waiting until every project has mature verified units rather defeats the point.
For companies approaching a 2040 or 2050 net-zero target, I would also put a meaningful share into removals. SBTi’s Version 2.0 points in that direction anyway: from 2035 it intends to require Category A companies to support an increasing share of carbon removals as they approach net zero, although the current post-2035 percentages are explicitly illustrative and will be reviewed in Version 3. View the standard.
That does not mean every removal is better than every avoided-emissions project. We have always separated those outcomes because they do different things. A well evidenced avoided-emissions project can be more useful than a weak removal. But I would not build a long-term BVCM strategy without understanding where removals will eventually fit.
BVCM verified mitigation: the unit has to support the claim
If a company wants to say it supported 10,000 tCO₂e of verified mitigation, I want to see an evidence chain that reaches the particular units being bought.
For issued carbon credits: Methodology → Monitoring → Verification → Registry → Unit status → Retirement.
I give more weight to the latest monitoring and verification documents than to the project sales page, because they answer different questions. The sales page tells you why the project is attractive. The monitoring and registry records tell you what has actually been delivered.
A “verified project” label is not enough if the particular tonnes being offered are still forecast or reported. Equally, future tonnes are not automatically poor-quality tonnes. They are simply not the same product as an immediately available verified unit.
I would not compare the two on price as though they were interchangeable.
BVCM early-stage finance: the questions change before verification
For earlier-stage finance, the diligence is different because there is no finished unit to inspect.
For earlier-stage project finance: What will the money pay for? → What will be reported? → What evidence will we receive? → What happens if delivery changes?
CommuniTree is useful here because we have watched the project grow for years rather than encountering it only at the point of credit issuance. The forest a buyer sees in a project report began with people collecting seed, growing seedlings, working with farmers and maintaining young trees. That is one reason I am comfortable with the idea that part of a BVCM budget may be most valuable before the tonne becomes tradable.
The condition is that the claim has to stay at the same stage as the evidence.
If the money funded future restoration, say it funded future restoration. Do not convert that into “verified removal” because the communications team would prefer the latter phrase.
How to build a BVCM strategy
The sequence I would use is: establish the emissions base, set the budget, decide the portfolio mix, inspect the project evidence, then agree the claim.
The order matters because every later decision can otherwise contaminate the earlier one.
Calculate the BVCM emissions base
Start with a Scope 1, 2 and 3 footprint that is good enough to support the commitment.
This does not mean waiting for perfect data. Most footprints contain estimates somewhere. The question is whether the uncertainty is large enough to change the budget.
If a spend-based estimate is being used for a major procurement category and the BVCM methodology applies a high carbon price to it, I would improve that category before treating the resulting finance figure as precise.
The footprint should be fit for the decision being made.
Set the BVCM budget before choosing projects
Once the emissions base is settled, choose the sizing method.
If the company uses money-for-ton, agree the carbon price and which emissions it applies to. If it uses ton-for-ton, agree the percentage of unabated emissions the business is prepared to match.
Only then would I open the project shortlist.
That sounds procedural, but it changes the commercial conversation. A £40 tonne no longer looks “expensive” simply because a £5 tonne exists somewhere else. The question becomes what each project does, what state the outcome is in and whether it fits the role assigned to it.
Decide the BVCM portfolio mix
Split the budget according to purpose.
A company might want verified mitigation now, future nature-based removals, some more durable removals and perhaps a smaller allocation to enabling work that does not yet produce a saleable tonne.
I would not force those categories into equal proportions for the sake of a tidy policy. The mix should follow the company’s timing, sector, net-zero date and appetite for delivery risk.
Check the BVCM project evidence
At this stage the glossy project summary becomes much less important.
For a carbon credit, I want to see the methodology, the latest monitoring period, the verification, the registry record, the status of the unit and the retirement mechanics.
For early-stage finance, I want to know what the money is actually paying for, what milestones will be visible, what evidence the company will receive and what happens if the project does not develop as planned.
A credible project can survive those questions. If it cannot, the buyer has learned something useful before committing the money.
Write the BVCM claim before the purchase
This is the last check, and I would do it before the contract is signed.
Put the proposed annual-report sentence next to the project evidence.
If the wording says verified removal, there needs to be a verified removal behind it.
If the wording says we financed future restoration, the project does not need to pretend that the future has already arrived.
I have become increasingly convinced that this is one of the simplest ways to improve carbon claims. It forces Sustainability, Procurement and Communications to agree on what is actually being bought while there is still time to change the purchase.
What can a company say about BVCM?
The clearest BVCM claims keep reductions inside the value chain separate from climate finance outside it.
A company might say:
“We reduced our operational and value-chain emissions by X tCO₂e and separately provided £Y to support mitigation beyond our value chain.”
Where verified credits have been retired:
“We retired X verified carbon credits from [project] as an additional climate contribution. These are reported separately from progress against our Scope 1, 2 and 3 reduction targets.”
Where the company has financed future work:
“We provided £Y to finance future restoration and mitigation beyond our value chain. The resulting carbon outcomes will be reported as they are monitored and verified.”
I prefer these statements to “we offset X tonnes” because the reader can see what actually happened. Nothing has to be hidden inside one reassuring number.
The same principle works for the project itself. Early finance does not need to masquerade as a finished outcome to be worthwhile. In many cases the fact that the money arrived before verification is the reason it was useful.
The BVCM approach I would use in 2026
If I were setting up a BVCM programme now, I would make three decisions before looking seriously at individual projects.
First, I would decide how the company is going to size its responsibility. Where the emissions data are good enough, money-for-ton is the most coherent starting point because it ties the financial commitment to unabated emissions without forcing every pound into a credit purchase.
Second, I would decide what I want the portfolio to do over time. I would normally want some ex-post verified mitigation because it gives the company a clear delivered outcome, but I would not make that the whole portfolio. Particularly in nature, there is value in financing the next generation of mitigation rather than only buying the last one after somebody else has carried the development risk.
Third, I would map the programme against OER. The 2024 BVCM guidance still gives the better strategic framework; Version 2.0 now tells companies what formal SBTi recognition looks like. A programme designed in 2026 should be able to live with both.
What would change that recommendation is the purpose of the programme. If the company needs a tightly quantified, ex-post result for a particular disclosure or recognition route, I would put much more of the budget into verified outcomes. If the priority is to catalyse future mitigation, I would accept more delivery risk and demand stronger project reporting in return.
That, to me, is the useful promise of BVCM. It is not a cleverer word for offsetting. It gives a company a way to decide how much climate responsibility it is prepared to take beyond its own reduction target, and then to direct that money deliberately rather than simply buying whatever number of tonnes fits the budget.
Beyond Value Chain Mitigation FAQ
No. Carbon credits can be used within BVCM, but BVCM is broader than buying offsets. It can include verified carbon credits, direct project finance, future mitigation and other climate action outside the company’s value chain.
The key distinction is that BVCM sits alongside the company’s own emissions reductions rather than being used to erase them.
Under Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 1.3.1, BVCM is recommended rather than required for target validation.
SBTi’s Version 2.0 introduces the separate OER recognition programme for companies that choose to take formal responsibility for ongoing emissions.
No. BVCM is additional to the reductions required by a science-based target. Carbon credits used for BVCM do not reduce Scope 1, 2 or 3 target progress.
BVCM is the strategic framework for climate action beyond the value chain. OER is the formal recognition framework in SBTi Version 2.0, with defined coverage levels and contribution requirements.
SBTi’s 2024 best-practice approach applies a science-based carbon price to 100% of unabated Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Where the underlying footprint is reliable enough, I would normally use that money-for-ton approach as the starting point.
Yes. BVCM is broader than buying already verified credits, and SBTi’s newer OER framework explicitly allows eligible ex-ante mitigation funding and other forward-looking climate actions.
The company should describe that finance according to its actual delivery stage rather than presenting it as an already verified outcome.
BVCM support from C Level
C Level has worked at the point where these decisions meet since 2000: measuring company emissions, directing business funding into community-led nature projects and dealing with the evidence that sits between the two.
That is why we would start a BVCM conversation with the emissions base and the purpose of the money rather than a catalogue of credits.
Once those are clear, the project questions become much more specific: what has already been delivered, what still needs financing, what evidence exists today and what will the company be able to say afterwards? You can see the projects we supply on our carbon projects pages.
Sources and methodology
This article draws on SBTi’s own BVCM guidance, the Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 and its criteria, and C Level’s project visit records. All time-sensitive sources were checked on 12 September 2026.
- SBTi, Beyond Value Chain Mitigation. Source for the position that BVCM is additional to value-chain reductions and must not replace or delay them, and that it is recommended rather than required for target validation. View the guidance.
- SBTi, Above and Beyond: an SBTi report on the design and implementation of BVCM, 2024. Source for the two purposes of BVCM, the three sizing methods, the best-practice money-for-ton approach, the illustrative case studies using a $75 carbon price and 1.5% of profit, and the statement that mitigation equal to 50% of unabated emissions is “a rough guide as opposed to a science-based recommendation”. View the report.
- SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0, June 2026. Source for Ongoing Emissions Responsibility and for the illustrative post-2035 removals provision in section 6.5. View the standard.
- SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 criteria. Source for the three recognition levels quoted here: criterion C40.3 for Engaged, C40.4 for Advanced and the US$20 benchmark, C40.5 for Leadership and the $80 benchmark with verified mitigation, and C41.3 for ex-ante mitigation funding as an eligible climate action. View the criteria.
- SBTi, Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 overview. SBTi’s own summary of what changes in Version 2.0. View the overview.
- C Level, CommuniTree project visit, 2023. Source for the project stages, the farmer and hectare figures, the 30 million native seeds and the roughly 4,000 hectares a year described here. Read the visit report.