What can be done when the verifiers aren't verifying effectively?

Anyone who is concerned with moving the world towards a sustainable future and reducing the worst effects of climate change will have been dismayed to learn about the very serious deficits in the integrity of VERRA certified credits exposed by the Guardian investigation last week.

VERRA certifies approximately 75% of all voluntary offsets of which about 40% are rainforest credits. These allow companies to offset their carbon emissions by protecting rainforest that would have otherwise been at risk from deforestation. The Guardian investigation found that 94% of these rainforest credits were based on outdated methodologies and do not reduce deforestation.

The Great Reserve is firmly behind the COP27 pledge of stopping deforestation by 2030 and this investigation comes as a significant blow to that aim. Another key concern for us is the reputational damage to the whole carbon industry, where there already exists significant mistrust. No doubt this will likely precipitate further investigations uncovering yet more ugly truths.

What can be done when the verifiers aren't verifying effectively? The onus will fall on the buyers of carbon, on the Heads of Sustainability within each business, who will need to assess each project not just from their desk but in the field.

Our relationship with carbon credits has been an interesting one. Our belief is that carbon accountability should be addressed domestically, not outsourced to the developing world. Digital tradeable carbon credits provided by projects in far off territories where land and labour are cheapest are completely removed from what we set out to achieve - to bring people into nature, roll their sleeves up and plant trees, to directly participate in their carbon journey.

As a project that is focused foremost on species protection, using carbon as a means to finance our project, we were never a good fit for the industry verification main players and have had to cut our own path.

Today we are holding our head high, embracing the low tech elements of our project verification methods that have set us apart from the industry standard . Our clients to come and plant their trees themselves (bulletproof verification!), and then provide GPS coordinates for every Sequoia planted. Thereafter Treeconomy's Sherwood platform uses drone technology for carbon reporting, integrating the latest technologies to track growth per tree.

What is our greatest hope? That the aftershocks from these investigations help the carbon industry regain integrity, to find a way to ensure funding for nature based projects is efficiently and correctly used, that the billions of dollars that will flow into this sector are applied to real solutions, where the impact is real and results are a world we can all still live in.