How does a credit get made?

The life of a credit follows roughly the same steps under most standards:

1. Design. The developer writes a project design document using an approved methodology, which sets out the baseline, the additionality test and how monitoring will work.
2. Validation. An independent auditor (Verra calls them validation/verification bodies, VVBs; India's CCTS uses Accredited Carbon Verification Agencies, ACVAs) checks the design before registration.
3. Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). The project measures its performance, reports it, and an auditor verifies the result.
4. Issuance. The programme issues credits into the developer's registry account, each with a unique serial number.
5. Transfer and retirement. Credits can be sold. When a buyer uses a credit to make a claim, it is retired (cancelled) in the registry, so it can never be used again. Verra's registry, for example, publicly tracks the issuance and retirement of every VCU (Verra VCS Program page, 2026).

A credit that has been bought but not retired has not yet been used for any claim.