Majority of Carbon Credits From Tarnished Project Deemed Bogus

After a two-year probe, the world’s largest certifier of carbon offsets has determined that most of the credits from a massive forest-protection project in Zimbabwe, which powered green claims of Volkswagen, Gucci, Nestle and McKinsey & Co., failed to benefit the atmosphere.

It’s a sharp blow to carbon markets, which have shrunk by more than two-thirds since 2021, amid ongoing concerns about the quality of carbon projects and a broader corporate pullback in climate action.

“This is a big deal,” said Grayson Badgley, a research scientist at Carbon Plan, a nonprofit that analyzes climate solutions. “I haven’t seen an investigation ...