BOLD Carbon (CH₄) Framework (MvF) v1.0.2

Framework summary

Scope

The BOLD Carbon (CH₄) MvF defines verification procedures for preventing methane emissions through composting organic waste that would otherwise decompose in landfills:

• Waste types: Food waste, green waste (garden, yard, and park trimmings), sludge from waste treatment plants, tobacco industry residues, and other organic subtypes classified under CDM waste codes
• Treatment: Aerobic composting at professional facilities
• Geography: Currently operational in Brazil, with the framework designed to be expandable to other regions
• Environmental claim: Prevented CO2e emissions from methane avoidance

Eligibility criteria

Participants must meet the same accreditation requirements as BOLD Recycling:

• Waste generators — Must be identified with valid documentation.
• Haulers — Required for truck and boat transport; optional for sludge pipe and cart collection.
• Processors — Exactly one processor must be identified per MassID.
• Recyclers — Exactly one recycler (composting facility) must be identified with valid accreditation dates.
• Network Integrators — Must have valid accreditation dates.

Verification requirements

BOLD Carbon (CH₄) includes all the verification checks present in BOLD Recycling, plus additional checks specific to emission quantification:

• All shared checks — Document validation, actor identification, event validation, geolocation, manifests, compliance, and integrity (see BOLD Recycling Framework)
• Emissions calculation — The prevented-emissions rule quantifies CO2e prevented using the UNFCCC AMS-III.F methodology
• Project boundary — The project-boundary rule validates the geographic distance between pick-up and drop-off locations

Baseline scenario and emission factors

BOLD Carbon (CH₄) references the UNFCCC AMS-III.F v12.0 methodology for emission calculations:

• Baseline scenario — Organic waste decomposing anaerobically in a landfill, generating methane (CH4)
• Project scenario — The same organic waste composted aerobically, preventing methane generation
• Emission factors — Static factors are used for most organic waste subtypes. For waste classified under CDM code 8.7D ("Others, if organic"), dynamic factors are applied based on Ibama waste classification codes.

The prevented-emissions rule applies the formula: prevented CO2e equals the mass of composted waste multiplied by the prevented emissions factor per ton, minus the mass multiplied by the exceeding emission coefficient.

Scientific basis

The following standards provide the scientific foundation for emission calculations and waste classification in BOLD Carbon (CH₄):

UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism

IPCC

Regional standards

Emission calculation parameters

Baseline emissions — CDM Tool 04 v8.0

For calculating methane emissions from landfills and dump sites, BOLD Carbon (CH₄) uses UNFCCC CDM Tool 04 v8.0 — "Emissions from Solid Waste Disposal Sites."

Three baseline scenarios are supported:

1. Landfill without methane flaring — Highest emissions (f = 0)
2. Landfill with methane flaring — Moderate emissions (f = 0.45, ~50% capture at 90% burn efficiency)
3. Dump site — Intermediate emissions (MCF = 0.8)

Real emissions — CDM Tool 13 v2.0

For calculating emissions during composting, BOLD Carbon (CH₄) uses UNFCCC CDM Tool 13 v2.0 — "Project and Leakage Emissions from Composting."

Default emission factors are for "Fresh Weight" (gross weight including water content). Additional factors for fossil fuel and electricity consumption apply but are not shown in the simplified formula.

Calculation example

For a composting facility using a 50/50 food waste to green waste ratio, comparing composting to landfill without methane capture:

This means composting 1 ton of food waste + 1 ton of green waste avoids approximately 2.2 tons of CO₂e over a 20-year period compared to landfill disposal.

Comparison across disposal methods

In every scenario, composting 1 ton of organic waste avoids more than 1 ton of CO₂e emissions.

Supported waste codes

BOLD Carbon validates waste materials against the Brazilian List of Solid Waste published by Ibama (IN nº 13, December 18, 2012) and maps each Ibama code to a CDM waste category from CDM Tool 04 v08.1. This mapping is enforced at submission time by the regional-waste-classification rule — see the Rules catalog and the Waste Classification reference for additional context.

CDM waste categories

The methodology supports 216 Ibama codes across the following CDM categories:

Ibama code reference

Expand each category below to see the accepted Ibama codes. The Ibama Code is the value to send as LOCAL_WASTE_CLASSIFICATION_ID; the Description is validated against LOCAL_WASTE_CLASSIFICATION_DESCRIPTION.

For codes under CDM 8.7D where % Carbon is not listed, the recycler must specify the waste type and/or provide a laboratory report. The carbon fraction is used by the prevented-emissions rule (rule 21) to calculate dynamic emission factors — see Baseline scenario and emission factors.

Key parameters

Validation rules

See the BOLD Carbon (CH₄) Rules catalog for the complete list of validation rules, grouped by category with descriptions.

Downloads

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