Most corporate carbon buyers now ask a sharper question than “how do we offset our emissions”. They ask “how do we fund climate action beyond our own footprint in a way that is credible, reportable, and safe for our reputation”. The answer the Science Based Targets initiative points to is Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, and it changes how a purchase like SaniTap’s credits is categorised, approved and claimed.

This article sets out what BVCM is, why it matters, why it is a genuine point of difference for both the buyer and the project, and how SaniTap’s carbon credits meet the requirements it implies.

SaniTap gives SBTi-aligned companies high-integrity, verifiable Beyond Value Chain Mitigation: mitigation and adaptation delivered in a least-developed country, funded on top of their science-based targets and reported as a contribution, not an offset.

In one minute

  • Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) is mitigation a company funds outside its own value chain, in addition to its science-based targets, not as a substitute for cutting its own emissions.
  • The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard and its 2021 “Above and Beyond” guidance recommend BVCM and increasingly treat it as expected practice for companies with validated net-zero targets.
  • BVCM is a contribution claim, not an offset. The company funds mitigation and reports “we financed X”, never “we reduced our own emissions by X”.
  • For the buyer it is a different, often easier budget line than offsetting, and a cleaner reputational and reporting story under CSRD, ISSB and the VCMI Claims Code.
  • SaniTap credits fit BVCM well: high integrity, additional near-term mitigation, deep co-benefits in a least-developed country, and both mitigation and adaptation from one partner.

What BVCM is

Beyond Value Chain Mitigation is the term the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) uses for climate action a company takes or funds outside its own emissions pathway. It sits on top of a company’s science-based targets, alongside the deep decarbonisation those targets require, rather than counting against them.

In practice, BVCM usually means financing high-quality mitigation elsewhere in the world: purchasing carbon credits, funding restoration, or paying into climate finance, without using those tonnes to reduce the figure in the company’s own greenhouse-gas inventory. The SBTi introduced the concept in its 2021 report “Above and Beyond” and carried it into the Corporate Net-Zero Standard, where companies are encouraged to make BVCM investments in addition to their validated targets.

The standard is built on a mitigation hierarchy: cut your own emissions first, as far and as fast as the science requires, then neutralise the small residual with permanent removals at the net-zero point. BVCM is the “and also” that runs in parallel, funding action the world needs now while the company works through its own multi-decade decarbonisation.

Why it matters now

Three things have pushed BVCM from a nice-to-have to an expectation.

The timing gap. A company’s own science-based pathway takes decades. Emissions the world cannot afford are happening this decade. BVCM is how a company acts at the speed the atmosphere needs, beyond the pace its own value chain can change.

The credibility reset. After several years of criticism of the voluntary market, the guidance from SBTi, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) and the Oxford Principles for Net-Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting has converged on one message: keep the claim clean. Do not use a credit to cancel out an emission you have not actually reduced. BVCM is the framing that keeps the company on the right side of that line.

The reporting frameworks. CSRD in Europe, the ISSB standards, and CDP disclosure all reward a company that can show credible climate contribution beyond its own operations, and all punish a weak or double-counted offset claim. BVCM spend, reported as a contribution, is the version that survives assurance.

Contribution, not offset, the distinction that governs everything

This is the point a sustainability team cares about most. An offset is used to reduce the company’s reported net emissions: buy a tonne, subtract a tonne. A contribution funds mitigation without adjusting the company’s own figure: the company says “we financed the reduction of X tonnes in Madagascar”, and its inventory is unchanged.

BVCM is squarely on the contribution side. That is why it can sit in a different internal line item from offsetting, and why it is often easier to get approved: it is framed as investment in the transition and in the company’s climate leadership, not as an accounting adjustment that an auditor will probe. The credit still has to be high integrity, because a contribution claim built on a junk credit is just as damaging as a bad offset. The claim simply states plainly what the money did.

Why BVCM is a differentiator

Not every credit makes good BVCM. The frameworks that recommend BVCM also expect the money to do real, verifiable good, and to reach where mitigation and development needs are greatest. A cheap commodity credit with weak additionality or unverifiable monitoring undermines a BVCM claim as surely as it undermines an offset claim, because the reputational exposure is the same.

So BVCM rewards exactly the qualities that separate a premium credit from a commodity one: approved methodology, conservative accounting, measured monitoring, real co-benefits, and transparency the buyer can point to. A project built to those standards is a natural BVCM instrument. A project built to minimise cost is not.

BVCM also opens a door that offsetting does not. Because a contribution claim is not tied to a tonne-for-tonne cancellation, the buyer can value co-benefits, adaptation and just-transition outcomes as part of what the money achieves, not only the carbon. That favours projects with a deep development story.

Why BVCM is value-adding for the buyer

For a company with an SBTi-validated net-zero target, framing a purchase as BVCM adds value in four concrete ways.

  1. Budget approval. BVCM sits in a different line item from carbon offsetting, one associated with climate leadership and stakeholder expectation rather than compliance accounting. Sustainability teams frequently find that easier to fund.
  2. Alignment with their own commitments. Companies with validated targets are expected to demonstrate action beyond their value chain. BVCM spend is how they show it, and a documented BVCM programme strengthens their standing with SBTi, CDP and their own boards.
  3. A defensible public claim. “We are funding high-integrity mitigation beyond our value chain” is a claim that holds up. It avoids the “we offset our way to net zero” criticism entirely.
  4. Reporting that survives assurance. With verified outcomes and open data, the buyer can disclose the contribution under CSRD, ISSB and CDP with evidence behind every number.

How SaniTap’s credits meet the BVCM requirements

SaniTap’s programme lines up with what good BVCM asks for.

High integrity. BVCM money must do real, verifiable good. SaniTap credits use Gold Standard methodologies confirmed as ICVCM Core Carbon Principles eligible, with conservative accounting (a 54% subnational fraction of non-renewable biomass), sensor-measured monitoring, and independent verification. This is the same integrity stack that makes the credits defensible as a purchase of any kind.

Additional, near-term action. Carbon finance funds the long-term maintenance and delivery that traditional aid does not, so the mitigation happens now and would not happen without the finance. That matches the “act beyond your own slower decarbonisation” logic at the heart of BVCM.

Depth of co-benefits, in a least-developed country. BVCM guidance steers money toward where it does the most good and toward climate-vulnerable communities. SaniTap operates in Madagascar, delivering safe drinking water and improved cooking with measured gains in health, gender equality, forest protection and household income, under Gold Standard’s SDG Impact framework and gender-responsive certification. For a buyer, this is BVCM with a development story that reports well.

Mitigation and adaptation from one partner. BVCM spans both mitigation and adaptation. SaniTap offers the mitigation credits and the adaptation programmes, cyclone-resistant safe water under the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism, and loss-and-damage restoration. A company can meet its mitigation and its adaptation contributions through a single high-integrity partner, which few developers can offer.

Reportable and transparent. SaniTap publishes its impact data through a live dashboard, a technical summary for assessors, and the Gold Standard registry, and provides the underlying evidence on request. A buyer can disclose its BVCM contribution with a full evidence trail, and can point third parties to open data rather than asking them to take a claim on trust.

Flexible commitment structures. BVCM commitments are made either tonne-based or money-based, for example a set annual sum or an internal carbon price applied to residual or all emissions. SaniTap structures offtake either way, so the contribution fits the buyer’s own BVCM policy.

How to engage

A buyer can treat SaniTap as its BVCM partner in three steps: agree a tonne-based or money-based annual contribution, receive the verified impact and SDG reporting to disclose it, and make a clean contribution claim that funds high-integrity mitigation and adaptation in Madagascar on top of its science-based targets. Our commercial team can structure the agreement to match an existing BVCM policy or help design one.

Talk to our commercial team See the verified impact

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