A study into forestry verification standards for projects in the voluntary carbon market reveals project developers must do their homework in matching the right standard to their activities. There are significant differences in approach among the emerging group of offset kitemarks and this also has implications for the buyers of the resulting credits.
“Forestry Carbon Standards 2008” is a practical examination of the nuts and bolts of four leading third-party standards for forest carbon projects, intended to give their developers a detailed comparative picture of their options for the verification of their carbon, social and other environmental benefits and impacts. It also includes a survey of 71 project developers representing 260 forestry projects.
The report, by researcher Eduard Merger from Germany’s Albert-Ludwigs University and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, looks at the Voluntary Carbon Standard’s (VCS) AFOLU program, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS), CarbonFix Standard (CFS) and the Plan Vivo Systems and Standard.
The standards cover the main afforestation and reforestation (A/R)
activities, including sustainable harvesting, agro-forestry and pure
conservation planting projects. The report, published by Carbon Positive, updates a version looking at the same standards released earlier this year.
Both reports show that the four standards often have quite different treatments of key issues around the generation of forest carbon credits and their verification - additionality, permanence, credit accounting, the social and environmental co-benefits of forestry project and the costs of gaining certification under each standard.
The results underscore the fact that the standards lend themselves to different needs among project developers and carbon credit buyers. It gives a guide to project developers as to which of the standards best suits their projects or business model.
The report concludes, for example, that Plan Vivo best suits smaller community projects of less than 1000 hectares in forest area. Higher upfront costs of the VCS, with its similar approach to A/R under Kyoto’s CDM, mean it is likely to suit projects of 10,000 hectares or more in size, over which its costs can be more widely defrayed. The CFS is perhaps the most widely applicable standard across the range of forestry projects, Merger finds.
Project developers seeking to demonstrate the highest level of social and environmental integrity will require the CCB Standards, and it will need to be considered by those wanting to maximise the value of their forest carbon credits. The CCBS does not verify the carbon benefits themselves and so must be used in combination with a carbon crediting standard.
Recent market analysis by New Carbon Finance bears out the value to project developers of developing their activities to a third-party standard, with offset credits so verified attracting double the price or more that could be expected in the voluntary market over credits without standards.
The report’s survey finds that the CCBS and the VCS enjoy the most recognition in the forest carbon sector but that most developers are not yet well informed about the standards. Yet the survey finds 84 per cent of forestry project developers have already pursued third-party verification under a voluntary market standard for the their projects or are considering applying for such certification.
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