In late September, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) approved final guidance regarding the listing of voluntary carbon credit (VCC) derivative contracts on CFTC-regulated designated contract markets (Final Guidance).  Commission observers had anticipated issuance of the Final Guidance for several months, as it follows proposed guidance issued by CFTC in December 2023.  The Final Guidance also follows the Biden Administration’s Joint Policy Statement on Voluntary Carbon Market Principles, discussed in our post earlier this year.  The Final Guidance, while applicable to derivative (or futures) contracts, represents the first official action by a U.S. regulator to help validate the integrity of the VCCs underlying such contracts.  In this vein, as the derivative contract and underlying VCC markets continue to expand and evolve, the Final Guidance may represent an integrity backstop of sorts for U.S. VCC market participants.