Verra, the Washington-based standards body behind the world's largest voluntary carbon and plastic credit registry, published methodology VMR0007 in February 2025, introducing a new compliance pathway for plastic credit projects that source collection volumes from informal waste sector workers — a segment that accounts for the majority of plastic recovery in low- and middle-income countries across South and Southeast Asia.
The update to the Plastic Waste Reduction (PWR) Standard addresses one of the most persistent criticisms of the plastic credit market: that the measurement, reporting, and verification requirements previously embedded in Verra's framework were effectively inaccessible to small-scale informal projects operating in settings where digital weighing infrastructure, formal contractual arrangements, and data management systems are either unavailable or unaffordable.
The headline change is methodological. VMR0007 allows project developers to estimate collection weight using indirect indicators — including truck load factors, container volume measurements, and photographic records — in cases where certified digital scales are absent. The approach introduces standardised uncertainty buffers of 12 per cent applied to all weight estimates derived from indirect methods, resulting in conservatively credited volumes that Verra argues are more defensible than the inflated figures sometimes recorded when non-calibrated equipment is used in conventional field settings.
Alongside the technical revisions, Verra has embedded a suite of social safeguards that represent a significant departure from its earlier plastic standard. Under VMR0007, project developers must document that waste pickers participating in collection activities earn a minimum income equivalent to the national living wage benchmark in the project country, verified annually by the appointed Validation and Verification Body. Projects unable to demonstrate compliance with the income threshold face temporary suspension of credit issuance pending remediation. The requirement follows sustained criticism from civil society organisations, including the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, that credit projects were capturing collection volumes without ensuring equitable benefit-sharing with the workers who generate them.
The reaction from project developers in the Philippines and Indonesia has been largely positive, though not without reservations. Manila-based project developer GreenLoop Credits welcomed the methodology as "long overdue," noting that the previous framework had effectively excluded dozens of viable collection communities from credit participation. Indonesian developer NusaReclaim raised concerns that the 12 per cent uncertainty deduction would materially reduce credit yields for projects in remote coastal communities where indirect measurement is unavoidable, potentially undermining the economic case for project development in those geographies.
For credit supply, the implications are substantial. Verra estimates that VMR0007 could unlock participation from an additional 280 to 350 projects across South and Southeast Asia within three years, representing a potential supply increase of 400,000 to 600,000 additional credit tonnes annually once the project pipeline matures. Industry analysts at South Pole and 3Degrees have flagged this as a significant medium-term development for market pricing, which has been partly supported by supply scarcity through 2024 and into 2025.
Credit quality is expected to become an increasingly important differentiator for buyers as a broader range of project types enters the registry. Verra has indicated it will publish updated guidance on Validation and Verification Body accreditation requirements for informal sector projects in the third quarter of 2025, a step that industry observers say is necessary to prevent a dilution of verification standards as project volumes grow.