Integrity
How we keep evidence honest
The rules we follow when we label, review and report evidence, and the claims we will not make.
Our role
We prepare evidence. We never verify it.
Climate Ground prepares evidence for climate and nature projects. Accredited validation and verification bodies, approved by the relevant registry, verify it. Registries decide what is issued, and governments make their own authorisations.
We do not describe our own evidence as verified, certified or guaranteed, and we do not present an example as a real result.
Rules
Six rules for every evidence record
- Label every figure.Measured, modelled or estimated, with its source. What each label means
- State the uncertainty.Beside the figure, not in a footnote. A claim uses the conservative end of the range.
- Show the gaps.Missing values are estimated and shown as estimated, never smoothed into a measured line.
- Review disagreements before counting.When sources disagree, nothing is counted until a person has reviewed it.
- Keep the raw data.Every correction is logged as a new version, with who made it and why.
- Use farm data only as agreed.Farm-level records are used under agreements with the people and programmes that hold them.
Language
The words we use, and the words we don't
We say
- Evidence, auditable, ready for verification
- Measured, modelled, estimated
- Reviewed, pending review
- Illustrative, for every example and figure that is not a real result
We don't say
- Verified, about our own work
- Certified or guaranteed
- Live, about an example or a concept
- A single combined impact score
Examples and sister company
What is illustrative, and who is independent
Every example, figure and date in Evidence in action is illustrative.
Climate Ground and Climate Securities are sister companies. A programme structured by Climate Securities can use any evidence provider that meets its methodology, and Climate Ground's evidence is checked by independent bodies whoever the client is. How the companies work together
Next step
Bring your evidence question
Tell us about the decision or the report the evidence needs to support, and what evidence you hold today.