Balance Your Carbon Footprint

All projects under C Level’s Carbon Balanced programme are designed and verified by the world’s original carbon standard, which is called Plan Vivo. Certification systems like Plan Vivo were set up to give credibility to carbon offsetting/balancing schemes and they require projects to meet a set of standards and provide data about impact. This means that everything from project design to impact reporting follows a structured approach as part of Plan Vivo’s system.

Payments are made over long periods to communities for the ecosystem services they create or protect. This is key to ensuring that the forest projects under Plan Vivo are uniquely placed to provide long-term security to the forests. Only by creating on-going value to small holder farmers and communities close to forests can their integrity be maintained. Otherwise pressures to cut and clear land of forest are often over riding. 

All projects must achieve additionality – which means they must provide evidence that the project is providing new carbon savings which would not otherwise have been achieved – it’s a key part of the standard. Additionality is built into the project design documents (which have to be approved for each project by Plan Vivo). 

Even more practically, C Level aims to add another layer of additionality by funding projects in advance of any project intervention. This enables the project teams on the ground to plan in advance for seed collection, tree nurseries, community recruitment and everything which is needed to create a long-term viable project. So in short, C Level works with  projects that represent the highest achievement in additionality.

Unfortunately, there are some rather poor offsetting projects around – it’s difficult to see and understand what the projects are achieving on the ground. So we look closely at every project and try hard to take people right ‘under the hood’ of a project, connecting them with project through zoom calls, regular C Level Conversations and Views and yearly impact updates. 

Plan Vivo means Living Plan.  Every project has these living plans at the heart of the project.  They are developed through a collaborative process with the local community.  By design, each project has to put local needs at the centre.  It takes time. The local people are involved  from the very beginning and have control over decision making which means that these projects have a truly sustainable future.  You cannot plant trees without ensuring you have a Living Plan or equivalent that ensures people and nature work together and are funded for years and decades to come.  That’s what the projects are about.  

CommuniTree, for example, has grown from a phone call and a vision ten years ago to the biggest reforestation programme in the whole of Nicaragua. That is for many important reasons, including the support it receives from C Level customers. But most important is the enthusiasm of and agency given to more and more local communities taking part.