News
28/05/2025
Press Release
CAD Trust announces Data Model v2.0
The new model will support greater registry interoperability, Article 6 use cases, and international data standardization while improving efficiency and performance.
SINGAPORE, 28 May 2025 — The Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust), the decentralised metadata platform that links, aggregates and harmonises all major carbon registry data, has announced the release of its upgraded data model v2.0.
Summary of changes
The v2.0 data model will support greater cross-registry interoperability and set a basis for more diverse use cases while enhancing the performance, scalability, and ease of maintenance of the CAD Trust infrastructure.
Building upon the existing structure established in v1.0, the new model refines the logic of entity tables, removes redundancies, and streamlines data structures to accommodate a broader diversity of registry architectures and entity relationships. This includes support for various labels and will make it easier to add new fields in the future. In addition, v2.0 aligns with the information requirements for Article 6 reporting using the Agreed Electronic Format (AEF), as a best practice encouraged in COP29.
Significance
Data model v2.0 is an important milestone in CAD Trust’s efforts to drive global data standardisation in carbon markets through public goods and cross-sectoral partnerships. It will enable us to cover a broader set of registry data, advancing our mission to provide a trusted harmonized overview of global carbon crediting activity across registries.
Supporting the operationalization of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and global accounting of emissions outcomes through public data infrastructure remains one of CAD Trust’s main priorities. In recent months, we have partnered with key initiatives and capacity building partners, including the Article 6 Implementation Partnership Centre and the Article 6.2 Crediting Protocol launched by Singapore, Verra and Gold Standard. We also continue supporting the capacity building work of World Bank’s Partnership for Market Implementation (PMI) and UN Development Programme (UNDP) on national registry infrastructure. The CAD Trust data model v1.0 already informs the baseline data structure for national registry infrastructure in more than 10 countries.
The alignment with the AEF in the v2.0 data model will facilitate data reconciliation between independent crediting program and national or global registries. v2.0 will also help enable seamless connectivity between interested national registries and the CAD Trust without additional data mapping efforts. As the international carbon markets mature and Article 6 advances, the data model may evolve further – for example, to align with the final infrastructure for the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism and the Centralized Accounting and Reporting Platform (CARP) or other global accounting systems.
v2.0 will lay the foundation for supporting public good use cases of the CAD Trust infrastructure, including:
- Government, regulator and market needs related to ITMO tracking and reporting
- Search by various labels across jurisdictions (e.g., policy eligibility, CCP, etc)
- Double counting identification across systems
All connected registries will start the migration to v2.0 after the public consultation and technical adaptation of the CAD Trust systems this summer, aiming for a full transition by early Q4 2025. All new registries will connect to the CAD Trust using the v2.0 data model.
Evan Kong, CAD Trust’s Technical Director, said:
“We are grateful to the fruitful contributions of representatives from the CAD Trust governance bodies and registry partners to deliver this robust result. Our space is evolving fast, and CAD Trust will continue to respond to market developments to bring trusted harmonized data to our users, support market-wide data standardization, and data reconciliation between systems.”
Development process
The v2.0 data model was developed intensively through several rounds of consultations with Technical Committee and User Forum members and connected registry partners. It also responds to a backlog of change requests raised through User Forum and Double Counting Taskforce (DCTF) discussions over 2024, responding directly to the evolving needs of the carbon market ecosystem.
Public consultation
CAD Trust welcomes feedback from the broader community, including registries, project developers, policymakers, market participants, integrity and data initiatives, and civil society to shape the final version of the v2.0 data model and understand future needs.
🎯 To provide feedback, please complete the survey by 27th June 2025. 🎯
Access v2.0 documentation:
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About CAD Trust:
Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust) is a decentralised metadata platform that links, aggregates and harmonises all major carbon registry data to enhance transparent accounting in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The CAD Trust open-source metadata system uses blockchain technology to create a decentralised record of carbon market activity with the aim to avoid double counting, increase trust in carbon credit data and build confidence in carbon markets.
