Afforestation/reforestation projects provide a natural climae solution that not only absorb CO2 from the atmosphere but create local jobs in forest management and conserve vital ecosystems.
Projects can include tree planting, single-species plantations, silvicultural systems and agriculture.
Using the power of nature to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to effective climate action.
Natural Climate Solutions can provide over one-third of the climate mitigation needed between now and 2030 to stabilise warming. What’s more, they deliver a wide range of benefits for ecosystems and the communities that rely on them.
THE GOLD STANDARD DIFFERENCE
Gold Standard takes a unique approach to land use activities that sequester carbon or avoid GHG emissions, focusing only on mechanisms that can deliver a high level of environmental integrity.
Ensuring environmental integrity: We do not issue carbon credits for REDD+ projects due to concerns about environmental integrity, including the ability to control leakage (when deforestation activities simply move to another area) and risks for overestimation of credits due to baseline uncertainty.
Our rules for forestry projects explicitly ensure projects don’t cut down trees to make room for new plantations. And to ensure permanence, Gold Standard requires a fixed 20% contribution for a pooled compliance buffer, which, unlike other standards, remains untouched even after the crediting period of the project, further reducing the risk of reversal and non-permanence.
Safeguarding principles: All Gold Standard certified projects must assess their potential environmental and social impacts and implement mitigation measures where necessary. Specifically, for land use activities this means following safeguarding principles that protect water resources, soil erosion + degradation, access to food, livestock wellbeing and areas with a high conservation value.
