About This Article
Welcome to our monthly update on the voluntary carbon market. This month, we analyze the carbon credit retirements for December 2025. As the year draws to a close, we typically see a rush of activity as corporates settle their accounts for the calendar year. This December was no exception, characterized by massive volumes from the energy sector and a significant market correction event by a major standard body.
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Retirement Records For This Month
Let’s dive into records for this month!
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Please note that:
The dataset only includes records from the following voluntary carbon credit registries, which are publicly available on their website: American Carbon Registry (ACR), ART TREES (ART), Climate Action Reserve (CAR), Gold Standard (GLD), and Verra (VCS).
We have only included records where the retirement quantity is equal to or greater than 1,000 tonnes of CO2e.
The company assigned to each retirement record was determined based on the information present in each individual note.
Sector information is categorized in reference to the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) to align each entry with the most likely respective industry.
Key Takeaways
December 2025 closed with extraordinary volumes. The headline story is dominated by two distinct narratives: the sheer scale of retirements by energy giant Shell, and a significant administrative action by Gold Standard regarding Safe Water Supply projects. Beyond these, we saw consistent, high-volume offsetting from the Tech and Pharmaceutical sectors.
Here are the most significant activities observed in the data: