Carbon and credits
Baseline
A baseline is the description of what would have happened without the project, against which the project is measured. Everything credited is the difference between the two, so how the baseline is set decides how much a project can claim.
Baselines are constructed rather than observed, so two careful teams can reach different numbers for the same block of land. That is why the working is published alongside the result.
Publishing the method before the results is what keeps a baseline honest, and it is the practice we follow.