Environmental Credit Service (preview) overview
Important
- Some or all of this functionality is available as part of a preview release. The content and the functionality are subject to change.
- As of February 4, 2025, we're no longer accepting new trial registrations for the Environmental Credit Service (preview) sandbox environment. If you're already registered for the 30-day trial, it remains available until your trial period ends.
- To use Environmental Credit Service (preview) in a production environment, complete the Environmental Credit Service (preview) sign up form.
- For further details, contact the Environmental Credit Service team at ecs_pg@microsoft.com.
Environmental Credit Service (preview) in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability enhances efficiency, trust, and transparency in voluntary ecological markets. It tokenizes and manages the lifecycle of assets, including projects, claims, and carbon credits, across participants such as suppliers, issuing registries, validation and verification bodies, marketplaces, custodians (financial intermediaries), and buyers. This service connects the diverse participants within the voluntary ecological market ecosystem.
Addressing climate change with Environmental Credit Service
To limit global warming to 1.5°C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends cutting global annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and reducing to net zero by 2050.
Organizations are increasingly committing to net-zero targets. To meet these goals, they're reducing emissions and purchasing carbon credits from voluntary ecological markets to offset emissions they can't directly reduce.
The market currently faces certain challenges. The Interwork Alliance (IWA) introduced a set of standards and frameworks to address these challenges. For an overview of the voluntary ecological market, the challenges faced by ecosystem participants, and the IWA standards for voluntary ecological markets, refer to the InterWork Alliance Overview.
Environmental Credit Service (preview) assists voluntary ecological market ecosystem participants in managing the entire lifecycle of projects, claims, and credits as tokens or digital assets in conformance with IWA standards. In Environmental Credit Service (preview), assets such as projects, claims, and credits are implemented as tokens. The token attributes and behavior follow the Token Taxonomy Framework (TTF) - May 2020. While some credits in the market don't conform to the TTF framework, Environmental Credit Service (preview) encourages customers to adopt TTF, but it also supports these nonconforming credits.
For more information about the voluntary carbon ecosystem and related terms, see the Voluntary Ecological Markets Overview.
Onboarding to Environmental Credit Service
Environmental Credit Service (preview) is in limited public preview and is being validated by a selected set of voluntary ecological market participants. To learn more about Environmental Credit Service (preview), email your details and your organizations details to the Environmental Credit Service team at ecs_pg@microsoft.com or express your interest in participating in the preview by completing the Environmental Credit Service (preview) sign up form.
As a prerequisite for onboarding, you need to have a Microsoft Entra ID tenant set up, and you need to share the tenant during the onboarding process. For more information about getting a Microsoft Entra ID tenant, go to Environmental Credit Service (preview) prerequisite.
After you're onboarded, you'll receive a confirmation email and details about the offering and related links for your reference.
Note
If you want to act on behalf of another organization by using the omnibus capabilities in Environmental Credit Service (preview), let the Environmental Credit Service team know while you're sharing your onboarding details with them. For more information about acting on behalf of another organization, go to Act as an omnibus in Environmental Credit Service (preview).
Support forum
You can reach out to the Environmental Credit Service team over email at ecs_pg@microsoft.com for any issues or clarification during preview.
Location of customer data
Previews typically store customer data in the United States but may store it globally.
Environmental Credit Service tasks
The articles in this section help you with the following tasks:
| Article | Task |
|---|---|
| Market roles supported | Learn how to use Environmental Credit Service (preview) to perform actions supported for various roles of the voluntary ecological markets ecosystem. You can either simulate all the roles to perform end-to-end flow or collaborate with other participants and perform specific roles only. |
| Register projects | Register modular benefit projects on the issuing registry. |
| Process claims | Create, submit, and verify claims. |
| Issue credits | Issue credits for verified claims. |
| View credits | Search and view credits. |
| List credits | List credits on a marketplace for trade. |
| Manage credits | Delist, transfer, or split credits. |
| Retire credits | Offset emissions and retire credits. |
| Manage files | Attach, view, and delete files for assets like project, claims, and credits. |
| Glossary | Obtain knowledge about the standards and terminology of InterWork Alliance (IWA) for voluntary ecological markets. |
Environmental Credit Service configuration
To learn how to configure Environmental Credit Service (preview) and use the API, go to the following articles:
- Environmental Credit Service (preview) prerequisite
- Set up the Postman collection
- Role-based access control
- Environmental Credit Service (preview) API reference
Related information
Configure Environmental Credit Service (preview)
Environmental Credit Service (preview) glossary
API reference overview for Environmental Credit Service (preview)
