Reflecting on the ideas put forward in the OCP/ecbi Discussion Note on "A Share of Proceeds for Adaptation (SOPA) in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM)", and the OCP blog post on "Safeguarding Social Integrity in the Voluntary Carbon Market," the ecbi Programme Heads facilitated a letter by lead representatives of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), the UNFCCC Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group, and the West African Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance to the members of the Board of the Integrity Council of the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM). According to the final report of the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (the precursor of the IC-VCM), the size of the VCM, currently at around $1.6 billion could reach between $30-50 billion in 2030, which, under an Art. 6.4 SOPA of 5% would generate between $1.5 and $2.5 billion annually for adaptation in the most vulnerable countries.

The letter was the culmination of a six month engagement with members of the IC-VCM Board and Expert Panel and other relevant stakeholders to promote the VCM-SOPA idea, which also led to an AOSIS/LDC letter to the IC-VCM Board, as acknowledged in an AOSIS press release. 

On 9 June 2022, the IC-VCM Board adopted a SOPA as one of its proposed Core Carbon Principles to be put for public consultation.