Eligibility criteria

Project developers shall demonstrate that they meet all eligibility criteria outlined in the Riverse Standard Rules, and described below with a specific focus on electronic device refurbishment.

Eligibility criteria that do not require specific methodology instructions are not described here. This includes:

• Measurability

• Real

• Technology readiness level

• Minimum impact

Riverse Standard Rules

Additionality

To demonstrate additionality, Project Developers shall perform regulatory surplus analysis, plus either investment or barrier analysis, using the Riverse Additionality Template.

Regulatory surplus analysis

Regulatory surplus analysis shall demonstrate that there are no regulations that require or mandate collection, refurbishment, and resale of electronic devices. It is acceptable if regulations promote or set targets for these activities, because the resulting increase in these activities shall be accounted for in the baseline scenario.

At the European Union level, projects automatically pass the regulatory surplus analysis, which has been conducted by the Riverse Climate Team. The EU has introduced the Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) Directive (Directive 2012/19/EU), the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in EEE (RoHS) Directive (Directive 2011/65/EU), Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC), and the Circular Economy Action Plan to prevent WEEE generation and promote re-use, recycling, and other forms of WEEE recovery. None of these legislations require electronic device refurbishing at the EU level. Project Developers are only required to provide a country-level regulatory surplus analysis.

Any increase in electronic device refurbishing and WEEE recycling thanks to the support of these regulations is accounted for in the GHG reduction quantification. For example, current rates of WEEE recycling are used in the GHG E-waste treatment section of the baseline scenario, and the current share of refurbished devices sold annually in the project country is considered in the New device productionsection of the baseline scenario.

Investment analysis

Investment analysis may be used to prove that revenue from carbon finance is necessary to make the project investment financially viable.

For example, Project Developers can apply investment analysis to the following situations to prove additionality (non-exhaustive list) :

• the development and launch of a brand new refurbishing project, or

• an expansion to scale up activities, such as expanding device collection capacity, or accelerating the refurbishing procedure with new equipment to be able to process more devices annually.

Business plans shall be provided as initial proof for investment analysis, to prove that the investment would not pay for itself, and that the amount of carbon finance is of the same order of magnitude as the investment cost. During verification, audited accounting documents shall be used to demonstrate that the initial estimates from the business plan were reasonable, and that carbon finance was used as initially described.

Note that for investments in expansion, only the additional carbon reductions enabled by the expansion shall be eligible for Riverse Carbon Credits.

Barrier analysis

Barrier analysis may be used to prove that the project faces financial, institutional, or technological barriers to ongoing operations that can only be overcome using carbon finance.

Examples of barriers that could justify additionality include but are not limited to:

• Financial barrier: financial analysis proving that the project is operating at a loss, or not financially viable or stable, and carbon finance would make it financially viable.

• Technological barrier: proof that the project suffers from a lack of skilled workers (since refurbishment is a manual, technical process), which negatively affects the overall quality or logistics of the project. Carbon finance may help overcome this barrier by providing training for employees.

• Technological barrier: Refurbishment in Europe may struggle to be cost-competitive with new device sales, or refurbishment occurring elsewhere. Carbon finance may be used to lower the selling price of the project’s refurbished devices, making them a more attractive and competitive option.

For any type of barrier analysis, audited financial documents shall be provided as proof. These documents should either demonstrate the financial status to prove financial barriers, or show that the project could not independently fund solutions to overcome institutional or technological barriers.

No double counting

Project developers shall sign the Riverse MRV & Registry Terms & Conditions, committing to follow the requirements outlined in the Riverse Standard Rules, including not double using or double issuing carbon credits.

No additional measures for double issuance are required because double issuance among actors in the supply chain is unlikely, given that device collectors and marketplaces are not eligible under this methodology.

Double counting policy

Co-benefits

Project developers shall prove that their project provides at least 2 co-benefits from the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework (and no more than 4).

Common co-benefits of electronic device refurbishing projects, and their sources of proof, are detailed in Table 1. Project developers may suggest and prove other co-benefits not mentioned here.

SDG 13 on Climate Action by default is not considered a co-benefit here, since it is implicitly accounted for in the issuance of carbon credits. If the project delivers climate benefits that are not accounted for in the GHG reduction quantifications, then they may be considered as co-benefits.

Table 1 Summary of common co-benefits provided by electronic device refurbishing projects. Co-benefits are organized under the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) framework.

UN SDG	Description	Proof
SDG 5.1 - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls	Electronic device refurbishing projects may promote gender parity in the information and communications technologies (ICT) workplace by having a large female workforce and having equal pay between men and women for doing the same job.	Average hourly earnings of men and women by age and disabilities (if any) Standalone official policy for equal pay or current scenario in the sustainability report
SDG 8.5 - Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities	Electronic device refurbishing projects often hire people with disabilities, who tend to have lower rates of employment (e.g. vs 74% overall activity rate).	Official record of number of employees with a disability vs total employees of the workforce
SDG 12.2 - Achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources	The project’s circularity will be measured by the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI), according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's methodology.	Primary data collected from the project for the GHG reduction quantification, which are also used in the Circularity Assessment
SDG 12.4 - Achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle	Electronic devices contain precious metals and rare earth elements. By refurbishing electronic devices, and recycling the precious metals and rare earth elements they contain, .	Number of devices refurbished. Amount of rare earth elements avoided calculated in Riverse life cycle inventory models.
SDG 12.5 - Reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse	The project diverts e-waste from improper disposal. In the EU, an average of 44% of small IT and telecommunication equipment e-waste is not treated in proper waste management channels. All e-waste collected in the project scenario is properly managed (via refurbishing or recycling).	Number and type of waste input devices.

Substitution

Refurbished devices must be valid substitutes for new device production as modeled in the baseline scenario (i.e. the avoided new devices).

Project developers must demonstrate and provide evidence of the quality of their refurbished devices, showing they are valid substitutes for new ones. This evidence may include documentation of quality control checks, the device grading system, and the quality thresholds that devices must meet to be sold instead of recycled.

Devices sold by the project that are not functional shall not be considered as substitutes for new devices, and will not be counted towards avoided emissions from new device production. The avoided emissions from e-waste treatment are still counted.

Refurbished devices are assumed to have shorter lifetimes than new devices. This difference in performance is acceptable because it is accounted for in the GHG reduction calculations to calculate the number of RCCs to issue a project (see Equation 19 in the section New device production).

Lifetimes for selected devices are presented in Table 3 in the Assumptions section.

For example, if a refurbished device has half of the expected lifetime of a new device, it is only counted as avoiding half of a new device.

Environmental and social do no harm

Project Developers shall prove that the project does not contribute to substantial environmental and social harms.

Additional proof may be required for certain high-risk environmental and social problems.

The Project Developer, the Riverse Certification team, or the VVB may suggest additional risks to be considered for a specific project.

ESDNH risk evaluation

Project Developers shall fill in the Riverse- Electronic device refurbishing risk evaluation, to evaluate the identified risks of electronic device refurbishing. The identified risks include:

• Improper on-site storage of non-functional e-waste

• Energy intensive processing

• Greenhouse gas emissions from transport for collection

• Greenhouse gas emissions from transport for shipping

• Worker health and safety

• Frequent replacement of devices due to shortened lifetime (rebound effect)

• Frequent replacement of devices due to economic incentives (rebound effect)

All risk assessments must also address the Minimum ESDNH risks defined in the Riverse Standard Rules.

Risk evaluation template

Project Developers shall assign a likelihood and severity score of each risk, and provide an explanation of their choices. The VVB and Riverse’s Certification team shall evaluate the assessment and may recommend changes to the assigned scores.

All risks with a high or very high risk score are subject to a Risk Mitigation Plan, which outlines how Project Developers will mitigate, monitor, report, and if necessary, compensate for any environmental and/or social harms.

Additional proof may be required for certain high risk environmental and social problems.

The Project Developer, the Riverse Certification team, or the VVB may suggest additional risks to be considered for a specific project.

Note that the life-cycle GHG reduction calculations account for the climate change impacts of most environmental risks. Nonetheless, Project Developers shall transparently describe any identified GHG emission risks in the risk evaluation template.

Leakage

Activity shifting

Leakage may occur when carbon-emitting activities are geographically displaced or relocated to areas outside the project boundaries as a direct result of the project's implementation. For electronic device refurbishing, this includes:

There is a risk that e-waste is transferred to different countries with less stringent waste treatment standards than their original country. This can occur in the form of:

• non-functioning parts or devices that are discarded at the refurbishing facility, and/or

• the refurbished device itself, which will undergo waste treatment in the country where it is sold and distributed.

Upstream and downstream emissions

Upstream and downstream emissions shall be included by default in the GHG reduction quantification, as part of the life-cycle approach. The upstream and downstream emissions included in the quantification are detailed in the Baseline scenario and Project scenario section

Project Developers shall transparently evaluate the likelihood of the above leakage risks in the PDD, plus any other project-specific leakage risks deemed relevant by the Project Developer, the Riverse Certification team, or the VVB.

Target alignment

Electronic device refurbishing projects must prove that they lead to at least a 47% reduction in GHG emissions compared to the baseline scenario. This is aligned with the European Union’s 2040 Climate targets, as described in the Riverse Standard Rules.

The scope of the reduction is the system boundary used in GHG quantification, described in the Baseline scenario and Project scenario sections below.

This shall be proven using the GHG reduction quantification method described in the GHG reduction quantification section.