Project Verification

After your NRT Projections are complete and you deem the Nori Project valuable to your operation, you will begin the process of verification. You do not need to hire a verifier until after you have run your NRT projection. This allows you to see the value of your Nori Project before absorbing the cost of verification. The verification step involves a third party auditor to ensure that the data entered for the Nori Project is reliable and replicable, there is evidence of  your practice changes and former practices and the Supplier has obtained approval from the land owners to participate in the Nori program. The cost of this step is paid for by the Supplier, in the same way that a grower pays for the seed in order to sell a crop. A ballpark estimate for the price of verification is around $3000 - $5000 per project, but this estimate could change. Verification is an important validation step in the Nori process to ensure the buyers of carbon credits are supporting the growers who are actively and responsibly stewarding their land. At this stage, the ball is out of Nori’s court to dictate the process of verification. But general steps of verification are as follows:

  1. Attain assignment of authority as Primary Contact from landowners for your Nori Project - Verifiers need to know that all landowners are aware of the Nori Project. More on this step can be found at the Overview of Assignment of Authority Guidance.

  2. Organize your records - This step helps decrease the cost of verification

  3. The Primary Contact will fill out a Project Bid Sheet to send to the verifiers approved by Nori. The Primary Contact will receive a series of bids for the cost of verification.

  4. Select the verifier to verify their project. At this stage, the Primary Contact will fill out a full verification spreadsheet to send to the chosen verifier. 

  5. The Primary Contact then works directly with the verifier to complete verification. Once a verifier is chosen, Nori is not involved in the process until the verification report is complete.  

Verification FAQs

Who are verifiers?

Verifiers are third parties who have fiduciary responsibilities. A fiduciary is a professional who is bound by a code of ethics that obliges them to put the interests of their client, in this case the Supplier, ahead of their own interests.  Verifiers who are ANSI certified or in good standing at any of the four existing major offset credit registries operating in the United States (American Climate Registry, California Air Resources Board Offset Program and Verra) are automatically whitelisted in the Nori market.

What are the verifiers looking at? 

In sum, verifiers are looking at a sampling of all records that provide enough evidence that your operation was run as stated in the Nori platform. Verifiers will be looking for records that support the overall narrative of agronomic management switching to conservation practices. The data they look for will lead to replicable and consistent results, such that independent parties are reasonably likely to come up with the same conclusions from the same records. Details that support this narrative are as follows: 

  1. Field ownership disclosure (in full)

  2. Assignment of Principal Contact’s authority to register the project and control disposition of NRTs, if the Principal Contact is not the sole landowner.

  3. Switch Year claim

  4. Records that your practice changed

  5. The data that is in the Nori platform is correct

What constitutes verifiable data?

A verifier does a random sampling of records to see if the evidence in records is generally consistent with data in Nori platform.  Any data the Supplier enters into Nori is subject to verification. Records include invoices, crop sales, receipts, time stamped, geo-located photos. 

Are there ways to reduce costs of verification?

The key to reducing verification costs is the accumulation and organization of your records to reduce verifier hours.