Following years of consultation and technical reviews, international standards’ setter, Verra, has published the draft consolidated REDD methodology designed to help ensure the quality and integrity of forest carbon credits.
The publication of the draft methodology comes in the wake of recent criticism of REDD+ which has seen carbon credits issued by some projects experiencing significant price declines.
First REDD methodology review in 14 years
The consolidated REDD methodology was released by Verra and is the first significant review since the REDD+ inception in 2009.
The methodology consolidates the previous five methodologies that included Avoiding Unplanned Deforestation (AUD) as well as the original REDD+ methodology for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.
Independent auditor, Aster Global, will now audit the draft methodology which is expected to be finalised later this year.
Importance of REDD+
The REDD+ methodology is a proven way of stopping deforestation by incentivising local communities to protect their forests in return for benefits generated through the sale of carbon credits.
The REDD+ methodology measures and prices carbon captured and stored by forests that would otherwise have been logged. REDD+ projects also generate significant co-benefits to communities such as education and healthcare.
Crowdsourcing jurisdictional data
Along with the release of the draft methodology, Verra is calling for carbon credit data to be added to their standardised baselines as part of the Estimation of Emissions Reductions from Avoiding Unplanned Deforestation.
As part of the process, Verra is aiming to crowdsource data to establish deforestation baseline data across 12 jurisdictions: Acre State, Brazil, Amapá State, Brazil, Amazonas State, Brazil, Pará State, Brazil, Rondônia State, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Mai-Ndombe Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
The jurisdictional baselines will ultimately be set in all 40+ jurisdictions with AUD projects by the end of 2024.