Governance

Governance at Sylvera

Sylvera develops ratings prioritizing independence, integrity and rigor

From inception, Sylvera has committed to remaining free from conflicts of interest, generating only robust, data-driven ratings, and building high-integrity governance structures and processes.

Sylvera voluntarily endorses and adheres to the Code of Conduct for ESG Ratings and Data Products Providers. You can read more about our compliance below.

Governance by design and default

Conflict-free

Sylvera carefully identifies and manages all potential conflicts of interest in everything from customer engagement to employment terms.

Review our Conflicts of Interest Register

Independent

Sylvera seeks to maintain structural separation between its Ratings and Commercial functions to ensure its Ratings are free from influence.

Read our Independence of Ratings Personnel Policy

Robust and peer-reviewed

Sylvera’s in-house specialists spend about 1,500 to 2,500 hours developing Ratings frameworks before putting them up for review with an external Framework Review Committee made up of expert stakeholders.

Quality controlled

Sylvera’s Ratings process has quality controls embedded throughout, with Ratings Committees and the Ratings Oversight Committee ensuring adherence to industry best practices.

Transparent

Sylvera maintains a whitepaper on its approach to Ratings, and publishes each of its frameworks as well as any comments received from external stakeholders. Our Ratings also set out all the data sources considered.

Read the Ratings whitepaper

Accountable

Sylvera seeks and encourages comments from developers and maintains a grievance process for any disagreements.

Oversight supportive

Sylvera actively supports policymakers to ensure incoming regulation, legislation and guidance scales high-integrity carbon markets and carbon policy, including by providing oversight to carbon ratings and data businesses.

Read our policy consultation responses

Code of Conduct for ESG Ratings and Data Products Providers

Sylvera is committed to maintaining policies and practices that drive the highest standards of independence, integrity, transparency and fairness, whilst ensuring accurate and robust ratings.

Launched on 14 December 2023, an industry-led working group with FCA oversight created the ESG Ratings Code of Conduct. It is grounded in the recommendations published by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), with a focus on promoting transparency, good governance, management of conflicts of interest, and robust systems and controls.

View our current Statement of Application

Sylvera’s current Code of Conduct, other policies and Conflicts of Interest Register can be found here:

Policy Definitions

Code of Conduct

Ratings Review and Release Policy

Monitoring and Amendments to Ratings Policy

Confidential Information and Material Non-Public Information Policy

Fees and Commercial Activities Policy

Project Developer Relationship and Grievance Policy

Frameworks Policy

Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Gifts and Entertainment Policy

Analyst Training Policy

New Ratings Policy

Independence of Ratings Personnel Policy

Non-Ratings Data Policy

Conflicts of Interest Register

Ratings and Data Organisational Structure

Ratings Frameworks and Framework Review Committee

Sylvera develops market-leading, robust and data-driven Ratings, data, and insights about the carbon markets. The development of each Ratings framework typically takes between 1,500 and 2,500 hours, and each Rating can take in excess of 100 hours to generate.

Sylvera’s frameworks are critical to taking considered, consistent and fair ratings decisions. Each project type is bespoke; we therefore develop frameworks for each project type. You can view all of our Ratings frameworks here.

The Framework Review Committee reviews and scrutinizes all new and materially amended frameworks before adoption. We invite representatives of industry bodies and multilateral institutions; standards bodies; project developers; technical and scientific experts; exchanges and marketplace operators; financial institutions; and buyers/retirees of carbon credits to each Framework Review Committee. Sylvera is also committed to ensuring members of the public can input on its frameworks should they wish, and interested parties are invited to submit comments (including requests to be invited to a Framework Review Committee) to frameworks@sylvera.io.

Whilst decisions on approving and implementing new and amended frameworks are taken by an internal Framework Approval Committee, Sylvera is committed to publishing minutes of each meeting of the Framework Review Committee after each meeting. Click below for the minutes of the meetings held to date:

CCUS FRC Q&A
Renewables FRC Q&A
IFM FRC Q&A
Cookstoves FRC Q&A
REDD V3 FRC Q&A
Regenerative Agriculture FRC Q&A