Alignment of Sustainable Development Goals in the Voluntary Carbon Market: Socio-ecological benefits and barriers for achieving climate goals and net zero

Achieving Net Zero will require carbon removals alongside decarbonisation to compensate for residual emissions in hard to abate sectors. The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has developed a plethora of protocols for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies (Smith et al., 2024). However, reaching net zero emissions by 2050 at a scale of 7-9GT CO₂e per year (IPCC, 2023) will require national level regulatory frameworks and internationally accepted CDR standards. (Martirosian et al., 2025).

Two barriers to scaling a credible and publicly-acceptable carbon removal industry are social acceptability and sustainability. The 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a useful framework to incorporate sustainability into practice, supported by financial mechanisms and voluntary self-reporting. The 2025 SDGs progress report reveals low adoption of the SDGs, with only 20% of goals being on target to sustainability by 2030 (United Nations, 2025), and gaps in climate action methodologies and data. It suggests a realignment with 2050 Net Zero targets (Sachs et al., 2024) presenting a necessity and opportunity for carbon removal markets to incorporate SDGs into monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV).

Our research is focusing on the analysis of existing approaches to SDGs in the VCM and potential alignments with best practices in relevant guidelines (e.g. BSI Standards, CRCF Regulation, and Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement). Preliminary findings show that of 34 globally registered standards claiming to address SDGs, self-reporting a collective 15 SDGs, there are inconsistent ways of communicating SDGs which offer little to no justification or data. None include these parameters in their MRV protocols for various CDR technologies (nature-based or engineered). Only one standard requires consideration and reporting of SDGs during project design, and one offers a self-reporting toolkit. Three MRV protocols report a requirement of one SDG, which is Climate Action. Including sustainability beyond carbon measures from project planning  throughout MRV would have a positive impact on reaching SDGs, increasing the integrity of carbon removal projects, unlock finance beyond carbon markets, and increase social acceptability and environmental protection.