CCB Alliance enhances carbon standard

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The rights of indigenous groups and areas of high biodiversity significance are the focus of updated carbon project verification standards issued by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA). The group has released a second edition of its carbon offset design standards at the annual UN climate conference in Poznan, superseding the initial version launched in 2005.

The CCB Standard has emerged as one of the leaders among standards aimed at the burgeoning voluntary carbon market, although it does not issue formal carbon credits. Over the past two years, a number of independent verification standards have arisen amid widespread concerns over the integrity of unregulated projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially in forestry.

There are now more than a dozen standards on offer to project developers to allow them to prove that their activities produce real and permanent benefits in reducing emissions, but not all these standards will survive. Last month the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), another leader, issued its final rules for land-use projects.

The CCB Standard targets the land-use sector solely and has a strong focus on the social and environmental impacts and benefits of projects, beyond the straight carbon benefits. The second edition strengthens these in key areas, Joanna Durbin, director of the CCBA, told Carbon Positive.

The social requirements now encourage greater say in projects from local stakeholders via the public comment period, which is the first stage of a three-step registration process. There is also now greater cultural recognition built in to the socio-economic requirements; the various indigenous groups impacted must be identified and their rights recognised.

The new edition ditches the Silver level of performance and introduces a revised Gold level which now rewards the delivery of “exceptional benefits”, such as those targeting the world’s poorest communities or areas of high conservation value.

The CCBA says there are now more than a 100 projects employing the standard although only a handful have reached final registration. The standard is also finding favour for projects in the rising field of avoided deforestation, or REDD.

The standard won’t suit some carbon offset developers, however, as it does not offer tangible, tradable carbon credits.

“We’re not a carbon accounting standard so we do not issue verified emission reduction certificates,” Durbin warns. “We validate a project design specifically for the social and environmental impacts, but because it’s a carbon project it has to demonstrate positive benefits for carbon.”

A number of project developers are pursuing dual verification using the CCB and another standard offering full carbon crediting. This produces premium credits which sell for higher prices.

The CCB Standard remains a pragmatic verification tool for project developers, laying down a non-prescriptive, conceptual set of criteria, rather than a rules-based approach. There are few restrictions on the type of activity that can be covered, but the onus is very much on project owners to demonstrate the impacts and benefits in a transparent and consultative way.

Timber harvest plantations, for example, do figure in the projects currently validated and registered, and aren’t confined to native species. But they do have to show a net benefit to biodiversity and advantages in the use of non-native species over natives.
“I think our standards are sufficiently strict to rule out monoculture plantations,” Durbin says.

Recently, a number of analysis reports on carbon verification standards have been published. “Forestry Carbon Standards 2008”, by Eduard Merger and published by Carbon Positive, concludes CCB Standard recognition offers “the highest level of socio-economic and environmental co-benefits in the market”.

A recent comprehensive examination of the voluntary and mandatory carbon markets, “The International Tree-Based Emissions Trading Market”, by New Zealand’s DANA Publishing, describes CCB as an “icing on the cake” standard.