To be eligible for Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs), you must regularly report on your project.
You also need to have your project audited to ensure the abatement reported is accurate.
Project reporting
You must complete an ACCU Scheme project report and crediting form in Online Services every reporting period. Use this form to report on your project and apply for ACCUs.
Check your project's method
Each method sets out what information you must include in your report. The methods also include specific instructions on how to calculate abatement. Make sure you understand the reporting and record-keeping requirements for your project's method.
You need to provide:
- an eligible offsets report covering the reporting period
- a signed application for ACCUs
- an audit report, if required by your audit schedule
- supporting documentation specific to your method (for example, a SavBAT report for savanna burning methods).
Mapping requirements
If your project is under an area-based method, you must supply geospatial data.
Find out more about mapping requirements.
Reporting period
You can choose when to report on your project, subject to minimum and maximum reporting periods.
You must report at least every:
- 2 years for emissions avoidance projects
- 5 years for sequestration projects.
If the net abatement for the period is 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO2-e) or more, the minimum reporting period is one month. If net abatement is less, the minimum reporting period is 6 months.
The first reporting period begins at the start of your project’s crediting period. Each new reporting period begins immediately after the previous reporting period. All reporting periods must be within your project’s crediting period.
You must submit a project report within 6 months of the end of each reporting period unless the method specifies otherwise.
Late reporting
You must submit project reports on time. This applies whether or not you are applying for ACCUs at the same time.
If you can't submit your project report on time, you must notify us at least 3 months before the reporting deadline.
We don't always approve requests to report late. We assess each request on its merits. After the first project report, we won't accept further delays in providing project reports.
Late reporting is a serious breach of the law. If you don't submit your report by the deadline, you may fail the fit and proper person test. This could result in your projects being revoked and affect your right to be issued ACCUs. It will also expose you to the risk of a civil penalty order being made against you. We may take action against late reporting or failure to report. Find out more about our compliance approach.
If your project has unfulfilled conditions about eligible interest holder consents or regulatory approval, ACCUs will not be issued.
Processing times
We assess applications for ACCUs against the eligibility requirements for your project's method.
We have up to 90 days to process crediting applications.
Sometimes we request further information from you. If you don't provide the information, we may refuse to assess your report or issue ACCUs.
Audits
All audits need to establish reasonable assurance that the abatement achieved and reported on by a project is accurate. We adopt a risk-based approach to audits to streamline audit requirements while upholding the integrity of ACCUs.
Where a project report must include a reasonable assurance audit, we won't issue ACCUs unless the audit is provided with the project report.
Audit schedule
We set an audit schedule for your project when it's registered. The audit schedule sets out:
- the level of assurance
- frequency of audits
- scope of audits.
The number of scheduled audits is based on your project's size and depends on the average annual abatement the project expects to generate. For most projects, we schedule at least 3 audits during the crediting period.
We use the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) (Audit Thresholds) Instrument 2015 to determine the audit schedule.
Audit types
There are 3 types of audits:
- initial audits
- subsequent audits
- unscheduled or triggered audits.
You must submit an initial audit report with your first project report. Initial audit reports are to give us confidence that your project is being run in accordance with the legislative requirements.
If your project reports more often than every 6 months, the initial audit must cover at least 6 months. You must submit it with the final report for the initial 6-month period. We recommend you complete and submit the initial audit report as soon as possible after the initial 6-month period.
The initial audit will cover the:
- project registration and assessment of the forward abatement schedule
- report for the first reporting period, including the accuracy of the measurement of abatement to date
- operation of the project
- all other matters relating to the establishment and operation of the project in accordance with the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 and the relevant method.
You must submit subsequent audit reports as set out in your project audit schedule.
The audit schedule ensures your project is audited across periods of peak abatement. We use scheduled audits to establish reasonable assurance that the abatement achieved and reported by a project is accurate.
Subsequent audits cover a minimum reporting period of 12 months.
Where a project report for a period claims more than 100,000 t CO2-e of abatement, an additional audit is required. Under the ACCU Scheme, these are sometimes called threshold audits.
We will decide the full scope of threshold audits. We recommend you contact us before you finalise a threshold audit with the auditor.
Choosing an auditor
All ACCU Scheme project audits must be undertaken by a registered category 2 greenhouse and energy auditor. You can find a list of auditors with their company, location and conditions of registration on the Register of Greenhouse and Energy Auditors.
We recommend you engage your auditor early when developing your project. This is to ensure you can establish costs and sound reporting and record-keeping processes from the beginning of your project. You are responsible for audit costs.
You must make all necessary documents and information available to the auditor. This includes data records, receipts and other supporting documentation.
We will have more confidence in your project if you engage at least 2 different auditors from different companies over the life of your project. For example, for a project with 3 audits, you should engage an auditor to complete 2 audits, and another auditor from a different company to complete the other one. If you do this, it's less likely you will be selected for additional audits.
You may also want to consider hiring a consultant to help develop your project. The auditor and consultant should not be the same person or entity. This is to avoid conflicts of interest, which undermine the integrity of audits under the ACCU Scheme.
For more details, view our webinar on audits of area-based methods under the ACCU Scheme.