The minute
- Verra approved the first carbon credits under its VM0046 methodology for reducing food loss and waste, generated by the Brightly project (Verra Project 4711) based in the United States.
- The project avoided approximately 720,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions by rescuing surplus food before it reached landfills, working with 29 independent food rescue organizations, including Feeding America.
- Between March 2020 and December 2023, participating organizations rescued 15.3 billion pounds of surplus food, with SCS Global Services serving as the validation and verification body.
Why it matters: This issuance establishes a verified, market-ready mechanism for monetizing food waste prevention as climate mitigation. Until now, food rescue organizations operated almost entirely on donations and grants. VM0046 creates a repeatable template: any organization that diverts food from landfills can, in principle, quantify the avoided methane and sell carbon credits. The move also signals that Verra is willing to certify emission avoidance in sectors traditionally outside the energy and forestry categories that dominate the voluntary carbon market.
Who wins and who loses with food waste carbon credits
The clearest winners are food rescue nonprofits that have long struggled with funding volatility. Carbon credit revenue offers a performance-based income stream tied to verified tonnes diverted, not donor sentiment. Brightly’s model, aggregating 29 organizations under a single VCS project, suggests that scale is achievable even for smaller operators that could not afford the validation process alone. Food retailers and manufacturers also gain: donating surplus to a project registered under VM0046 could generate Scope 3 reduction claims, provided the credits are retired rather than resold, a distinction corporate sustainability teams will need to navigate carefully.
The potential losers are composting and anaerobic digestion operators competing for the same surplus food feedstock. If carbon finance makes food rescue more economically attractive, less organic waste may flow to industrial composting facilities that have made capital investments expecting growing supply. Landfill gas capture projects registered under other VCS methodologies could also see a competitive dynamic: the more food diverted upstream, the less methane available for capture downstream, which could reduce credit generation for existing landfill gas projects.
What this means for Brazilian companies
Brazil does not yet have an equivalent methodology registered under its emerging regulated carbon market. The bill that created the Brazilian Emissions Trading System (SBCE, Law 15.042/2024) focused on capped sectors and did not include food waste avoidance as an eligible offset category. On the voluntary side, Brazilian food banks such as Mesa Brasil (operated by SESC) rescue significant volumes of food, but none currently generate carbon credits from that activity. VM0046 is, for now, a VCS-specific methodology, meaning a Brazilian project could theoretically register directly with Verra, but would need to meet VM0046’s baseline and monitoring requirements, including proof that diverted food would otherwise have reached anaerobic decomposition in landfills.
This is where a concrete gap appears. Brazilian national solid waste policy (PNRS, Law 12.305/2010) already mandates a waste hierarchy that prioritizes reuse over disposal, but compliance is uneven, and there is no federal incentive tying food rescue volumes to carbon finance. A Brazilian food rescue organization seeking VM0046 credits would need to demonstrate additionality, proving that carbon revenue is what enables the rescue activity beyond what regulation already requires. Given that PNRS enforcement varies widely by municipality, the additionality argument may be viable in some regions and difficult in others.
What remains undecided
VM0046 v1.0 covers food kept in the human food system, but it does not yet address animal feed diversion or industrial upcycling of food byproducts, both of which also avoid landfill methane. Verra has not indicated whether future versions will expand scope. It is also unclear how Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will treat food waste avoidance credits in cross-border transactions, since no corresponding adjustment mechanism has been tested for this project type. For companies considering purchases, the durability question is open: unlike a forest that stores carbon for decades, food waste credits represent one-time avoidance, and buyers should verify how rating agencies and voluntary market integrity initiatives (such as ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles) will assess these credits going forward.
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