Texas officials approved Monday a research project to investigate the feasibility of a blue carbon financing model that will aid in a Gulf Coast shoreline restoration plan.

The South Carolina chapter of the National Audubon Society will launch a programme aimed at enabling family landowners to generate revenue from the voluntary carbon market (VCM), the conservation charity announced Monday.

A proposed class action challenging carbon neutral marketing for vaping products should be revived because the lower court misdefined the term and prematurely resolved disputed factual questions, three consumers have told a US appeals court.

Apple Watch buyers have asked a US appeals court to revive claims that the tech giant falsely marketed certain devices and its corporate operations as carbon neutral, arguing that a lower court improperly required scientific validation before allowing the case to proceed.

Public lands guidance - A working group within Brazil's finance and environmental ministries expects to publish a report on Sep. 9 providing guidance related to the development of carbon credits on federal public lands, Reset reported. The working group's goal is to propose ways to resolve legal, land, environmental, and institutional bottlenecks for carbon credit projects on areas including conservation units, Indigenous lands, rural settlements, and public forests that have not yet been designated, aiming to address issues such as land tenure and protecting the rights of traditional communities and family farmers. While each agency that administers federal lands is responsible for defining its own processes for approving and monitoring projects, one of the group's goals is to ensure these regulations are harmonious with each other.

A newly launched biochar company plans to help African agricultural processors convert biomass waste into biochar and generate verified carbon removal credits for corporate buyers, it announced last week.

Gains - Thailand-based digital services firm Ditto’s digital token tied to 400k carbon credits from a mangrove project rose on its trading debut on Thailand’s Bitkub exchange on Monday, opening more than 8% above its THB 1.20 ($0.04) offer price, Kaohoon International reported. The company had raised THB 480 mln through 400 mln tokens to fund the restoration and maintenance of 2,805 ha of mangrove forests. Ditto projects an average annual internal rate of return of 10% under its base case, rising to 20% in the best-case scenario, while targeting a minimum 3% return in the worst case, with carbon credit-linked payouts expected after the first four years.

Scaled-up carbon crediting, which covers emissions reductions measured across entire jurisdictions or sectors, or linked to specific government policies, needs stronger safeguards as demand from aviation and Article 6 buyers grows, the OECD said in a report released Monday. 

New IFM leakage tool - US-based carbon standard Verra is developing a tool to calculate carbon leakage from improved forest management (IFM) projects that reduce timber harvest volumes. The tool, currently at the draft methodology development stage, will account for both activity-shifting leakage by the baseline agent and market leakage caused by other actors, Verra said on its website.

Regulators in one of China's major coastal cities have established a national alliance for the development of blue carbon trading.