Platform Architecture
A high-level operational view of how the Carrot Network turns verified circular economy work into traceable credits: purchases, rewards distribution and retirement records.
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How the Carrot Network works
This page maps the Carrot Network end to end in four stages. Supply chain data is captured as MassIDs. Methodology rules verify it through digital MRV (dMRV). Verified outcomes are recorded: certificates are published in the Carrot Registry, and credits are issued when a certificate is recorded on the public registry. Credit purchases fund the participants who did the work and the network behind it.
Select a card in the diagram to read its explanation. The detailed diagram shows the methodology ecosystem. For the organizations and roles behind this architecture, see Credit Ecosystem Roles.
Overview
The platform architecture runs in four stages. Capture: Network Integrators submit supply chain data through the Carrot API, and each batch of waste becomes a MassID. Verify: methodology verification (dMRV) runs a methodology's rules against each MassID. The rules come from a standard, a methodology, its Methodology Verification Framework (MvF) and the Methodology Verification Application (MvA) that executes them; the intelligence layers support verification with anomaly detection from the Carrot Analytic Engine (CaE) and improvement recommendations from the Carrot Agentic Advisor (CaA). Record: certificates are issued from verified MassIDs and published in the Carrot Registry; when a certificate is recorded on the blockchain, with its metadata on IPFS and its MassID recorded first, its credits are issued in the same transaction. Fund: credits are purchased and retired, and rewards distribution shares the purchase proceeds with the participants behind the credits, back to the start of the chain, and funds the network components that run the registry and dMRV. Anyone can check the record in the Carrot Registry, in the Metadata Viewer and on Atlas. Cards and stage headings link to their sections on this page. A separate action beside Verification rules opens the detailed methodology ecosystem diagram.
From physical work to verified, funded credits. Select a step to read how it works.
Certificates and credits remain linked to the underlying MassID evidence. Sales proceeds return to contributing participants and support the network.
The network is open by design to registries, methodology developers and application developers. Methodology and registry agnosticism describes the architecture; it does not mean that every integration is operational.
Capture: physical work becomes evidence
1. Supply chain data capture
Network Integrators digitize waste management operations and submit the data through the Carrot API: material type, weight, and every custody handoff across the recycling supply chain. Each record is append-only: it grows through new events, never through edits.
2. MassID creation
Each batch of waste becomes a MassID, the foundational data unit of the network. A MassID carries the material, the weight and the full chain of custody from waste source to recycling facility, together with the documents and events recorded along the way. It is the Proof-of-Physical-Work and Proof-of-Provenance record that the next stage verifies.
Verify: methodology rules decide
3. Methodology verification (dMRV)
When a MassID's audit opens under a methodology, the platform runs that methodology's rules against the MassID's supply chain events. Each rule result is kept by the platform as it runs and shown in the Carrot Registry, so the audit can be read rule by rule. Rules the code cannot settle pause the run for a recorded human decision. When every rule passes or is approved on review, the MassID becomes eligible for recording and certificate issuance.
Learn how methodology rules run
Where the rules come from
Every rule traces back through four layers: governance sits with the standard, and execution sits in software anyone can inspect.
Standard
Governs how methodologies are created, approved and versioned. Every methodology on the network is governed under the Carrot dMRV Standard. Where no established global standard exists, as for recycling credits, Carrot acts as the standard. Where one exists, as for carbon, the methodology references the external standard.
Methodology
The scientific basis: what to measure and how impact is quantified — for example BOLD Recycling, or AMS-III.F for methane reductions through composting.
Methodology Verification Framework (MvF)
The verification specification that turns a methodology into testable rules, formulas and evidence requirements. See MvF.
Methodology Verification Application (MvA)
Open-source software that executes that methodology framework's rules against MassIDs. Its results are the rule-by-rule audit behind step 3. See MvA.
| Layer | Recycling path | Carbon path |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Carrot dMRV Standard | Carrot dMRV Standard; AMS-III.F references UNFCCC CDM |
| Methodology | BOLD Recycling | AMS-III.F |
| MvF | BOLD Recycling framework | BOLD Carbon (CH₄) framework |
| Certificate | RecycledID | GasID |
| Credit | TRC (C-BIOW) | TCC (C-CARB.CH4) |
Explore the Methodology Ecosystem
Intelligence layers
Intelligence supports verification
CaE evaluates data and verification results; CaA provides recommendations. Methodology rule results and recorded review decisions govern credit issuance.
Carrot Analytic Engine (CaE)
The evaluation layer of the verification stack: a machine-learning layer designed to analyze dMRV data and verification results, detecting anomalies, inconsistencies and suspicious patterns. It is designed to strengthen audit quality, not to certify credits. See Anomaly Detection (CaE).
Carrot Agentic Advisor (CaA)
The advisory layer of the verification stack: it can learn from verification outcomes to recommend methodology, data quality and process improvements. It advises; it is not an authority. See Methodology Advisory (CaA).
Record: certificates and credits
4. Certificate issuance
A MassID that passes a methodology's rules at an accredited facility generates a certificate: a RecycledID for certified recycled material, or a GasID for emission reductions. The same MassID can back both, because each certificate comes from an independent methodology framework. Once issued, the certificate is published in the Carrot Registry with the amount of credit it corresponds to. It is not yet on the public registry, and no credit has been issued for it.
5. Blockchain record
Carrot records certificates on the public registry as inventory is needed, not all at once, and a certificate's MassID is recorded there first. Each record's metadata is uploaded to IPFS, producing a content-addressed URI, and the record is created on the blockchain registry as a non-transferable record whose creation transaction records that URI on-chain, linking the registry entry to the metadata stored on IPFS. A recorded certificate's metadata links to a public audit report on IPFS that lists each rule executed and its result. A later change to an on-chain reference emits a public event, and a revocation is recorded too.
Learn how registry records are created
6. Credit issuance
Credits are issued only when a certificate is recorded on the public registry, in a matching amount and in the same transaction, so every credit sold comes from a recorded certificate; a certificate that has not been recorded has no issued credits and cannot back a purchase. One recycling credit represents 1 metric ton of certified recycled material; one carbon credit represents 1 metric ton of CO₂e reductions: Tokenized Recycling Credits (TRC) such as C-BIOW from BOLD Recycling, and Tokenized Carbon Credits (TCC) such as C-CARB.CH4 from BOLD Carbon (CH₄). Credits are the only transferable layer. MassIDs, certificates and receipts stay non-transferable, so the chain of evidence behind every credit stays intact.
Fund: purchase, retirement and rewards
7. Credit purchase
Buyers purchase credits through Carrot interfaces — the Carrot Store for individuals, or Carrot-provided interfaces for organizations. Settlement happens on the public registry in USDC, in a single transaction that completes entirely or not at all, and each purchase is recorded as a Credit Purchase Receipt.
8. Credit retirement
Retirement permanently claims the environmental benefit: the credits leave circulation and a non-transferable Credit Retirement Receipt is recorded. Credits can be retired in the same transaction as the purchase, which is how every purchase, including every Carrot Store package, is retired today; the contracts also support retiring them after purchase, which is not yet offered.
9. Rewards distribution
The proceeds of each purchase are shared with everyone behind the credits, in proportion to the value each MassID contributed:
- Supply chain participants — Waste Generators, Waste Managers, Bin Custodians, Haulers, Processors and Recyclers
- Network Integrators — for digitizing the supply chain
- Methodology builders — MvF Authors and MvA Developers
- Network components — the Registry, the Distribution Fee and the digital MRV and Integrity Component, which fund the network's operation rather than a participant
The percentages by waste type are set by the Rewards Distribution Policy. This is where the loop closes: funding flows back to the participants behind the credits, down to the source where the waste was generated.
Public verifiability
Records on the public registry — recorded MassIDs and certificates, credits, purchase and retirement receipts, and rewards commitments — are public: any block explorer reads them without relying on Carrot, and the metadata URIs they carry resolve to documents on IPFS. A recorded certificate's metadata links to a public audit report on IPFS that lists each rule executed and its result, and that report links to the methodology. The Carrot Registry shows every issued certificate, including those not yet recorded on the public registry, together with the MassID audit and the documents and events behind each MassID. Together they let a retired credit be traced back through its receipt, the credit, the certificate and the MassID audit to the MassID itself.
Carrot Registry
The technical record layer at registry.carrot.eco: credit purchases and retirements, every issued certificate, MassID audits with every rule result, and MassIDs with their documents and events. It shows more than the public registry holds, so reading it relies on Carrot; a block explorer reads the public registry records alone. See Carrot Registry.
Atlas
The public entity surface at atlas.carrot.eco: one plain-language page per record, and the address written into each record's metadata, so a link followed from a block explorer or a wallet lands on the page for that record. See Atlas.
Metadata Viewer
Opens the provenance document behind a MassID, certificate or receipt from IPFS and renders it in the reader's browser, at viewer.carrot.eco. Each record embeds an IPFS reference to the viewer build, so a reader can run that build instead of Carrot's hosted copy. For raw transactions, any public block explorer such as PolygonScan reads the chain directly. See Metadata Viewer.
Deeper topics
- Credit Lifecycle — The MassID, Certificate, and Credit lifecycle and relationships
- Smart Contracts — The automated registry software that executes network transactions
- dMRV — Execution and evidence for methodology framework criteria
- Supply Chain — Participant roles, logistics flows, and the validator model
- Interoperability — How external systems monitor, index, and verify Carrot data
Credit Ecosystem Roles
Who does what in the Carrot crediting system: standards, methodologies, dMRV, registry, VVBs, buyers, and supply chain participants.
Third-Party Verification
How independent third parties provide assurance across the Carrot ecosystem — from facility audits to dMRV evidence review.