Verifiers are assigned by rotation from an accredited pool and paid by the registry. Developers never choose, never pay, and never see the assignment in advance.
In most of the voluntary market, the project developer selects their verifier and pays the fee. Everyone involved may act in good faith, and the incentive still points one way: a verifier who raises hard findings is a verifier who is not rehired.
Financial audit solved this decades ago by separating who selects the auditor from who is audited. We applied the same separation. Verifiers are drawn from an accredited pool by rotation, their fee comes from a pooled levy on issuance, and no developer can request or refuse a particular firm.
It costs us more to run and it slows issuance down. It is also the only version of independence that survives being asked how it works.
Next layer
Verification ends with an attestation. The registry is where that attestation becomes permanent and checkable by anyone.