CORSIA Moves From Rules to Procurement as Airlines Start Buying

CORSIA is no longer a framework airlines are preparing for; it is a market they are buying into. Within days, four separate signals showed the aviation offsetting scheme entering its operational phase: Verra completed CORSIA-eligible tagging of more than half a million previously issued cookstove credits for Canadian financier Base Carbon, Japan Airlines signed the aviation sector’s first carbon removal purchase structured for CORSIA compliance, a South Korean carrier signed a first-of-its-kind carbon trading pact with a financial firm, and Letters of Authorisation covering nearly 3 million credits were announced in a single week. For credit suppliers, corporate buyers watching compliance markets, and investors in project pipelines, the message is that CORSIA first-phase demand (2024-2026) is now transacting, and the bottleneck has shifted from rules to authorised supply.

Supply: Existing Inventories Are Being Converted, Not Just Created

The most telling development is retroactive. On September 28, Base Carbon announced that Verra had completed CORSIA First Phase eligible tagging of 639,609 previously issued credits from its Rwanda cookstoves project, developed with DelAgua under the VM0050 methodology. That brings the project’s total CORSIA-eligible tagged credits to 1,959,812, with roughly 2.6 million further credits expected on regular six-month issuance intervals over the remainder of the crediting period, all of which the company expects to become eligible.

Why this matters more than a new project announcement: tagging converts already-issued voluntary market inventory into compliance-grade supply without a single additional tonne being generated. Projects with issued credits, a host-country Letter of Authorisation and an approved methodology can unlock CORSIA value from stock, which compresses the timeline between eligibility decisions and deliverable supply. Base Carbon’s CEO Michael Costa framed it as a cadence story: regular issuance plus regular eligibility gives the company fully CORSIA-eligible inventory to sell into aviation compliance demand.

Source: CarbonMeld — independent carbon credit market intelligence. Document-based quality scores and assessments across all major registries: carbonmeld.com

Demand: Airlines Are Restructuring How They Buy

On the buyer side, procurement is getting more sophisticated. Japan Airlines signed a procurement agreement with Climeworks Solutions, described as the aviation sector’s first carbon removal purchase for CORSIA. The structure is bifurcated: Climeworks Solutions will source a diversified portfolio of CORSIA Eligible Emissions Units from high-durability pathways, specifically biochar and soil carbon sequestration, to meet statutory requirements, while JAL separately purchases Climeworks’ direct air capture credits as a long-term technology investment.

The distinction is deliberate. Compliance units and innovation spending sit in different buckets, with different price points and different claims. JAL’s sustainability chair Noriko Ogawa positioned removals as a tool for residual emissions, with fleet renewal, operational efficiency and sustainable aviation fuel remaining the priority: the airline targets a 10% cut in aircraft CO2 emissions from 2019 levels by 2030. Climeworks’ chief commercial officer Adrian Siegrist read the deal as a marker of carbon removal moving from voluntary climate action into compliance markets.

Elsewhere, Trinity Airways signed a memorandum of understanding with NH Investment & Securities on September 21 covering CORSIA and Korea’s emissions trading scheme, described as the first such agreement between a Korean airline and a financial institution. According to Carbon Pulse, the carrier secured 20,000 CORSIA-eligible credits as part of the arrangement. The pattern, airlines pairing with financial intermediaries to navigate compliance procurement, is likely to repeat as smaller carriers without in-house trading desks face the same obligations.

The Authorisation Layer Is the Real Market Signal

Underpinning both sides is the Article 6 machinery. CORSIA-eligible supply requires host-country authorisation, and last week brought Letters of Authorisation covering nearly 3 million credits, according to Carbon Pulse’s weekly VCM report, which also recorded CORSIA futures continuing to recover. Authorisations, not methodologies, are now the pacing item for the market: each LoA converts a project’s credits into units airlines can actually surrender.

This creates a two-tier supply picture. Tagged, authorised inventory like Base Carbon’s Rwanda credits can trade into first-phase demand immediately. Untagged credits, however large the underlying issuance, sit behind an authorisation queue that depends on host-country capacity and corresponding adjustment processes. Buyers pricing CORSIA exposure should treat those tiers as different commodities.

What It Means for Buyers, Developers and Investors

For airlines and their advisers, the JAL structure is the template to study: separate compliance-grade eligible units from speculative durable-removal purchases, and lock supply before the first-phase surrender deadline tightens the market. Carriers without trading capability will increasingly route through banks and brokers, as the Trinity Airways deal suggests.

For project developers and financiers, retroactive tagging changes the valuation math on existing portfolios. Issued credits with a plausible path to authorisation now carry an embedded compliance option that did not exist when they were verified. Expect sale processes for authorised, tagged inventory to price visibly above untagged equivalents.

For investors, the LoA pipeline is the metric to track: methodology approvals set the ceiling, authorisations set the flow.

What to Watch

Three markers from here. First, whether CORSIA futures hold their recovery as more tagged supply reaches the market, or whether authorisation volumes outpace demand and soften prices. Second, the pace of LoA issuance from host countries, which determines how much of the theoretical eligible pool becomes deliverable before the first phase closes at the end of 2026. Third, whether more airlines adopt the bifurcated procurement model, pairing cheap compliance units with a separate durable-removal budget, because that choice will shape demand for biochar, soil carbon and DAC credits well beyond aviation.