CDOP Calls on Carbon Market Participants to Adopt a Common Data Language — and Demonstrates How
With half of the targeted schema on track to be harmonized, tested, and publicly available for Climate Week NYC 2026, CDOP's open-source schema is ready for market-wide adoption
True standardization requires widespread implementation: CDOP invites market participants to align their data delivery infrastructure with the CDOP schema
On June 18, CDOP members will discuss schema adoption, with a live showcase of how the schema is being integrated — register now to join
The carbon market is driven by a common purpose: to mobilize investment into real climate action. Every participant across the value chain works toward this goal, and ambition abounds. Yet one of the most persistent barriers to achieving the collective ambition is data fragmentation and inconsistency.
Market participants spend dozens of hours collecting, cleaning, and reformatting carbon data for each project — time and money should otherwise be spent funding forest conservation, scaling carbon removal technologies, and deploying capital to where it is needed most. Friction between incompatible data formats should not be a blocker of climate investment. Carbon data should flow seamlessly across systems to minimize the burden of manual reformatting and support the efficient, accurate exchange of data — unlocking the carbon market’s scaling, enhancing trust through stronger data integrity, and ultimately driving climate finance with high impact.
The case for a common data language
The Carbon Data Open Protocol (CDOP) was created to address this problem: to unblock data frictions by establishing a shared data language across the carbon credit lifecycle.
That language is being defined by the people who are exposed to its current discrepancies daily. Developed through the collective expertise of more than 75 member organizations — spanning registries, project developers, financial institutions, ratings agencies, and public sector bodies — CDOP's schema is designed to be fit for purpose across the diversity of carbon market actors.
To date, CDOP has harmonized 11 data categories, including foundational pre-issuance fields such as Project Approach and Details, Crediting Period, and Estimations. Seven additional categories are targeted for publication at Climate Week NYC this coming September, with the aim of covering the full carbon credit lifecycle by mid-2027.
Yet, as with any language, its value is only realized through widespread fluency. The benefits of CDOP — reduced friction, greater interoperability, and more efficient data exchange across the market — depend on adoption by the market participants who handle carbon data every day.
What adoption looks like in practice
In its full form, adoption means designing data-delivery infrastructure (e.g., APIs and internal data pipelines) in alignment with the CDOP schema, ensuring that all fundamental data fields are consistently shared in a standardized format. The result is carbon project and credit data that is accessible, comparable, and interoperable across the market without manual intervention.
To date, six organizations – spanning project developers, ratings agencies, registry service providers, and lawyers – have adopted the available CDOP schema and are using it to exchange project data more efficiently, with further organizations expected to adopt over the course of the year.
Adoption is expected to be implemented in phases, and CDOP recognizes that the path will look different for each organization depending on its systems, workflows, and role in the value chain.
See our blog here for a breakdown of how CDOP benefits respective market participants.
Join us: CDOP Adoption Webinar — June 18
To illustrate what this journey can look like in practice, on Thursday, June 18, CDOP members will come together to discuss and demonstrate schema adoption in action. Co-chairs will provide an overview of the adoption process, and CDOP member Equitable Earth will walk through the practical steps it has taken to integrate the schema into its existing systems and the value it is already delivering.
CDOP: Adopting an Open Data Protocol for Interoperability in Carbon Data
Thursday, June 18 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ET
Register for the webinar here.
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CDOP is supported by more than 75 organizations from the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. The work of building shared data infrastructure for the carbon market requires sustained participation and support across all three. To find out more about CDOP, become a member, or support this initiative, visit the CDOP website.
