Jurisdictional approach
Carbon accounting and crediting organised at the level of a whole state, province or country rather than individual projects.
A jurisdictional approach places the accounting boundary around an administrative territory. Emissions reductions are measured for the entire jurisdiction, and credits derive from that aggregate performance rather than from individual parcels.
The appeal is scale and integrity. Jurisdiction-wide accounting captures leakage between projects, aligns with government policy levers, and can support sector-wide transformation in a way isolated projects cannot. The cost is complexity: land-use change must be attributed across all drivers, and benefits must reach the actors who deliver them.
Jurisdictional programmes typically nest projects inside them, so that project-level results roll up into the territorial total without double counting. Designing that nesting consistently is the central technical challenge.
Frequently asked questions
Do jurisdictional programmes replace projects?
Usually they absorb them. Projects continue to operate but their credits are accounted within the territorial total.
What is 'nesting'?
The arrangement that reconciles project-level crediting with jurisdictional accounting so the same tonne is not counted twice.