What is the Carbono Neutro certification?

It is a seal Icontec grants to an organization, product, event or territory whose greenhouse gas emissions have been quantified, verified, reduced and offset for the remaining balance. Since June 2025 it is governed by Icontec's Decarbonization Processes Protocol, which defines seven levels, from the management plan to net zero emissions.

No. It is voluntary. What is mandatory, or about to be, is the inventory underneath it: the Mandatory Emissions Report under Ley 2169 asks for the same calculation, with the same verification, from companies above the threshold.

Which standard is used to calculate?

For organizations, ISO 14064-1:2018 or the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, including the most significant scope 3 emissions. For products and events, ISO 14067:2018 or the GHG Protocol life cycle standard. Neutrality is declared under ISO 14068, whose 2026 edition replaced the 2023 ISO 14068-1.

How long does the certificate last?

Three years, in a cycle of granting, surveillance and renewal. Every year you must quantify and verify again at a reasonable level of assurance, and show that the footprint falls within the cycle, not just against the base year.

Carbon credits from projects registered in recognized programs, retired or canceled in the name of the responsible entity, for the whole footprint left after reducing. Your own reductions sold as credits to third parties are added back to the footprint, to avoid double counting.

Does it exempt me from the carbon tax?

Not automatically. The tax's non-accrual is a separate procedure, with certificates canceled in RENARE and a cap of 50% of the tax. But the verified inventory and the canceled credits are the same, so a process done well serves both.

Icontec's Carbono Neutro certification: how to get it

In June 2025 Icontec published version 00 of its Decarbonization Processes Protocol: 44 pages replacing the previous neutrality guide. What is new is not the seal, which Primax, for one, received for the fifth consecutive year in 2024. What is new is that there are now seven levels, scope 3 enters the inventory and verification is annual at reasonable assurance.

This guide walks through that protocol step by step, from the inventory to the offset, and says what to have ready before calling the certification body.

What it certifies and for whom

The protocol certifies four kinds of subject: organizations, products or services, events and territories. For organizations it allows a total scope or a partial one: a facility, an area or process, a specific category or scope, the direct sources, the fleet or the energy consumption.

There are seven levels, arranged as a ladder: emissions management plan, science-based management plan, emission reduction, partial offsetting, carbon neutrality, management plan towards net zero and net zero emissions. An organization can enter at one level and climb even within the same three-year cycle. The protocol requires documenting why that level, subject and scope were chosen.

Two limits worth knowing before you start. A product with a partial footprint, cradle to gate, can only reach the reduction certification. And a partial certification of an organization requires explaining how it will move to the total scope.

Step 1: the inventory

For an organization with total scope, the footprint is calculated under ISO 14064-1:2018 or the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. It must include all direct emissions, the indirect emissions from energy and the most significant scope 3 emissions, quantified with the GHG Protocol value chain standard. If you only want to certify scopes 1 and 2, the protocol treats it as a partial scope.

For products and events, ISO 14067:2018 or the GHG Protocol life cycle standard. For territories, the Global Protocol for Community-Scale GHG Inventories, at Basic + level.

Exclusions are capped: up to 5% of direct and energy-related indirect emissions, up to 30% of other indirect emissions, and 2% by mass or energy for products. The share of other indirect emissions excluded must fall progressively.

Two more rules from the protocol. If you use the market-based approach for electricity, with renewable energy certificates, you must also report the location-based one, and targets are set on the latter. And if you report direct removals, forestry for example, the report is signed by a professional competent in that kind of removal and meets clause 6.2.3 of ISO 14064-1.

The GHG Protocol and ISO 14064 guide explains how scopes map to the ISO categories.

Step 2: verification

The footprint is verified under ISO 14064-3:2019 by a validation and verification body accredited under ISO/IEC 17029 and ISO 14065:2020, with an audit team meeting NTC ISO 14066. Decree 446 of 2020 requires that body to be accredited by ONAC or by an IAF member.

The frequency is annual, at a reasonable level of assurance. That is the same level as a financial audit: the verifier asks for the activity data, the factor and the document behind every figure, and recalculates a sample.

Verification is almost always ex post, with data from the closed year. Only events that declare during their course, products that declare before production and cases Icontec authorizes allow ex ante validation, and even then they must be verified in the following period.

Step 3: the management plan

This is where most processes stall. The protocol requires an emissions management program or plan of at least three years, the same horizon as the certification cycle. For carbon neutrality and net zero, the plan must go beyond three years, with short, medium and long-term objectives: two to five years, five to ten, and more than ten.

The plan has fifteen mandatory sections. The ones that take the most work:

The entity's decarbonization policy and the emissions context against the base year.
Quantifiable objectives, with the method used to set them. If they are not in absolute terms, that must be justified, and absolute emissions are reported anyway.
A carbon budget or decarbonization pathway, aligned with the objectives.
The reduction actions, focused on the main sources, with the expected reduction of each one and its assumptions.
Indicators, owners, deadlines and resources per action, and a monitoring mechanism.
Environmental and social safeguards.
For carbon neutrality and net zero, an economic analysis of the actions needed to reach the residual emissions level, or a justification of why it is not reached and the plan to get there.

The organization chooses the base year, but the reduction has to show within the three-year cycle, not just against that year.

Step 4: offsetting

Carbon neutrality, as defined in ISO 14068, means having reduced and offsetting what remains. The order matters: reduce first, then offset the residual.

The protocol sets hard rules for offsetting. Your own reductions or removals transferred to third parties as credits are added back to the subject's footprint. Avoided emissions cannot be used to offset residual emissions. And if a removal is reversed, the resulting emissions are counted in the period it happens.

For credits, it pays to look at two registries at once. The Icontec protocol asks for credits from recognized programs, retired or canceled in the name of the responsible entity. The carbon tax's non-accrual, which is a separate procedure, asks for certificates canceled in RENARE, reactivated by Resolution 418 of 2024, with a cap of 50% of the tax, as the Ley 2169 guide explains. A credit meeting both conditions serves both purposes.

Step 5: the declaration and the cycle

With the verified inventory, the plan and the offset, Icontec issues the certificate and the decarbonization declaration. It is valid for three years, with a surveillance audit every year and a renewal at the end. At each surveillance you quantify, verify and show reduction again.

The reference framework changed in 2026. ISO 14068-1:2023, which the protocol is written against, was replaced in September 2026 by ISO 14068:2026. And BSI stopped operating the PAS 2060 scheme, the British standard many companies certified under, on January 1, 2025, with until December 31, 2025 to close verifications already under way. If your previous certificate cites PAS 2060, the renewal will be under the ISO.

The Ministry's program

Besides Icontec's seal, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development runs the National Carbon Neutrality and Climate Resilience Program, with a corporate track that supports companies in measuring their footprint and building their management plan. It does not replace certification, but it is a way to reach step 1 with support.

What we would do in your place

Before hiring the body, close the full-year inventory with scope 3 included, even if only as an estimate. The protocol does not leave it out and the verifier will ask for it.

Choose the level you will enter at, not the one you want to end at. Certification of the management plan or of reduction is an honest first cycle; carbon neutrality comes when the plan already has three years of data.

Keep the invoice behind every figure. Annual reasonable assurance is earned with a traceable inventory, and that same inventory is what the Mandatory Emissions Report under Ley 2169 will ask for from 2027.

Grumbic calculates emissions from your fuel and electricity invoices, classifies them by scope under the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1 and keeps every figure linked to the document it came from. That backing is what the verifier reviews every year.

See the platform or talk to us.

Sources

Information reviewed on October 17, 2026 in documents from Icontec, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, ANLA, ISO and BSI. This guide is informative and does not replace legal advice.