Despite belonging to the highly polluting fossil fuel sector, major oil and gas companies are not only among the largest buyers of carbon credits, they are also heavily invested in seeking to shape the voluntary carbon market. This report zooms in this outsized role. It focuses on how oil supermajors employ greenwashing strategies, including offsetting their emissions and using carbon credits to give the illusion of meaningful progress towards reaching their climate targets. Driven by a desire to safeguard the supply of cheap and low-quality carbon credits, some fossil fuel companies have also been engaging with policy and governance processes through both formal and informal channels.

These fossil fuel interests consistently back approaches that promote carbon credit use that is in alignment with their commercial interests, including expanding the supply of different carbon credit types and continued market growth. In parallel, these companies operate in close proximity to the institutions tasked with defining and safeguarding carbon market integrity, such as  the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and the Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity initiative (VCMI). While insufficient information is publicly available to assess whether the outcomes of the work undertaken by voluntary initiatives has been directly influenced by oil and gas companies and other market actors, there are sufficient grounds to consider this a credible risk that warrants serious scrutiny.