# Version history

:point\_right: See [Archived Rainbow Standard Documents](https://docs.rainbowstandard.io/other/archived-methodologies/archived-rainbow-standard-documents) for full versions of previous documents

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V7.1</summary>

**Additionality**

* Investment: move IRR calculation instructions from additionality template to Standard Rules
* Regulatory: define "upcoming regulations"

Specify downward adjustment required for baseline setting

Co-benefit reporting must include, if applicable, include any SGD indicators that are required by the host country.

Specific standard-level requirement to assess, mitigate, deduct and monitor leakage.

</details>

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V7</summary>

**Replace V6.2 with V7, linked with Procedures Manual V3.0 release**

**Public Consultation: November 2025**

* **General**
  * Eligibility criteria replaced with Principles and requirements
  * Remove Minimum impact requirement
* **Environmental and social safeguards**
  * Specify all projects must prove compliance with local and national regulations
  * Strengthened stakeholder consultation procedure, including a required meeting and thorough documentation
  * New IPLC and FPIC requirements
  * Risk assessment: any material risk identified must have a risk mitigation plan
  * Expanded list of risks to assess
* **No scheme hopping**
  * New requirements for Project Developers to disclose if they have applied for certification under another standard or registry in the last 5 years
* **Durability**
  * Renamed from Permanence section
  * Move risk of reversal assessment to methodology-level, if no material risks identified, no project requirements. If material risks are identified, projects follow risk assessment procedure.
  * Defined avoidable vs unavoidable reversals
  * No standard-level minimum durability threshold, methodologies define minimum permanence
  * Minimum contribution to buffer pool changed to 2%, higher minimums may be determined in methodologies
* **Co-benefits**
  * Require quantification approach to be detailed and publicly disclosed
  * All co-benefits must be monitored
  * Removed minimum and maximum limit of 2-4 co-benefits
* **Delivery**
  * New section, addresses the removed Real eligibility criteria requirements
  * Removed TRL eligibility criteria requirements, replaced with Feasibility
  * Added requirements for minimum content of Monitoring plan&#x20;
* **GHG quantification**
  * Added cumulative limit for exclusion cutoff threshold
  * Strengthened Uncertainty assessment requirements, and approaches to making conservative choices when faced with uncertainty
  * Maximum uncertainty level/discount factor of >15%
  * Allow for GWP100 from other IPCC versions, if required for compliance with regulatory schemes
* **Monitoring plan**
  * Specify information to be provided with each monitored parameter
* **Baseline**
  * Moved out of GHG quantification and into new section, Project and baseline scope
  * Replace Guidance on Avoided Emissions by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) with other best-practice guidelines for baselines (from ICVCM, CORISA, CRCF)
  * Specify baseline must account for government policies and legal requirements that lower GHGs
  * Remove substitution and targets alignment, reference these principles in Baseline section

**Post-Public Consultation: January 2026**

* Remove all mention of carbon “reduction”, in relation to avoidance, for clarity
* Update high-level carbon removal quantification equtions and sign conventions

</details>

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V6.2</summary>

Replace V6.1 with V6.2 October 2024

* Replace DPD and Detailed Project Description with PDD and Project Design document
* Revised Additionality Template with new requirements:
  * Sensitivity analysis
  * For barrier analysis, demonstrate alternative activities does not face same barrier
* Revise ESDNH criteria, minimum risks to consider for all projects

</details>

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V6.1</summary>

Replace V6.0 with V6.1 August 2024

* New appendix with IT Security requirements
* Terminology changes, reflected in the Glossary (notably discount factor and buffer pool)

</details>

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V6</summary>

{% embed url="<https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/1wp7SnmEO9TlUZ5KyA80mD8Ir7d9_sE-o/view>" %}

</details>

<details>

<summary>Change log for Rainbow Standard Rules V5.2</summary>

{% embed url="<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jzrqLC-siL0Pc-HYPBJAzrT4fF-S5xpD/view>" %}

</details>


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