The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards
http://www.climate-standards.org
Overview
Market Size and Scope
Offset Project Eligibility
Additionality and Quantification Procedures
Project Approval Process
Selected Issues
References
Overview
Type of Standard and Context
The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards (CCB Standards) is a project design standard that offers rules and guidance for project design and development. It is intended to be applied early on during a project’s design phase to ensure robust project design and local community and biodiversity benefits. It does not verify quantified carbon offsets nor does it provide a registry. The CCB Standards focuses exclusively on land-based bio-sequestration and mitigation projects and requires social and environmental benefits from such projects.
The CCB Standards was developed by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) with feedback and suggestions from independent experts. CCBA is a partnership of non-governmental organizations, corporations and research institutes such as Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, CARE, Sustainable Forestry Management, BP and CATIE. The first edition was released in May 2005 and the Second Edition in December 2008.
Standard Authority and Administrative Bodies
CCB Alliance is formed by representatives from each member organization. The alliance currently has 12 members that make decisions about changes to the standards. It also works closely with project auditors, advising them on interpretation and application of the standards.
Working groups are comprised of alliance members and external advisors, and are appointed when needed to address specific issues. Working group proposals for changes must be approved by the Alliance.
Third-party auditors are DOEs under the CDM for afforestation and reforestation – organizations that are approved to evaluate CDM projects – or evaluators who are accredited under the Forest Stewardship Council. Validation and verification can be done by the same auditor. (The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a non-profit organization with a mission “to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests”. It certifies sustainably managed forestry operations, and tracks their timber through the supply chain to the end product, which can then carry the FSC ecolabel.)
Regional Scope
Projects using CCB standards are worldwide.
Recognition of Other Standards/ Linkage with Other Trading Systems
Since the CCB Standards is focused on social and environmental impact and does not include a mechanism for generating emissions reductions certificates, it is often used in conjunction with a carbon accounting standard such as the VCS or the CDM. A recent survey indicated that about 50% of projects that are using or planning to use CCB Standards are or will be using it in conjunction with the VCS, about 25% with the CDM.
Market Size and Scope
Tradable Unit and Pricing Information
The CCBS is not a carbon accounting standard and does not issue or register carbon credits (see ‘recognition of other standards’). Many CCB Standards projects fetch a premium price.
Some CCB Standards projects sell ex-ante credits.Ex-ante offsets are offsets that will occur in the future, ex-post offsets are emissions reductions that have already occurred and usually have been verified by an auditor.
Participants/Buyers
VER buyers: companies and institutions
Current Project Portfolio
As of July 2009, a total of 10 projects have completed validation and 26 other projects have initiated the validation process. Of these 36 projects, 27 are in developing countries. Over 150+ projects indicated intent to use the CCB Standards.
Offset Project Eligibility
Project Types
CCB Standards focuses on land-based climate change mitigation projects, and accepts the following project types:
- primary or secondary forest conservation;
- reforestation or re-vegetation;
- agro-forestry plantations;
- densification and enrichment planting;
- introduction of new cultivation practices;
- introduction of new timber harvesting and/or processing practices (e.g., reduced impact logging);
- reduced tillage on cropland;
- improved livestock management, etc.
- actions to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD)
Project Locations
Projects can be located in industrialized and developing countries. The revised version of the Standards – CCB Standards (2008) – includes rules to prevent potential double-counting of Annex 1-based projects.
Project Size
There are no restrictions on project size.
Start Date
There are no restrictions on project start date but projects must have credible documentation for baselines from the start of the accounting period for carbon, community and biodiversity benefits.
Crediting Period
The CCB Standards has no rules on crediting periods because it is solely a project design standard.
Co-benefit Objectives and Requirements
CCB Standards projects must generate net positive impacts on biodiversity. The standard employs a screen to rule out negative impacts and requires that each project justifies net positive biodiversity benefits taking into account any offsite or indirect impacts. The second edition of the CCB Standards has expanded its requirements for co-benefits. The screen stipulates that projects cannot have negative effects on High Conservation Values, including species included in the IUCN Red List of threatened species or species on nationally recognized lists and critical ecosystem services. Invasive species or genetically modified organisms cannot be used in a project. Impacts on biodiversity (positive and negative) must be monitored and the results made publicly available.
CCB Standards projects must generate net positive impacts on the social and economic wellbeing of communities and must mitigate potential negative effects caused by the project on-site and offsite. CCB Standards requires a 30-day public comment period. Stakeholder involvement is required and must be documented during all phases of project development. Stakeholders must have an opportunity before the project design is finalized to raise concerns about potential negative impacts, express desired outcomes and provide input on the project design. The project design must include a process for hearing, responding to and resolving community grievances within a reasonable time period. The net social and economic effect of the project must be positive, the impacts (positive and negative) must be monitored and the results made publicly available.
The biodiversity criteria require an evaluation of whether the project zone includes any of the following High Conservation Values and a description of the qualifying attributes:
- Globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity values;
- Globally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape-level areas where viable populations of most if not all naturally occurring species exist in natural patterns of distribution and abundance;
- Threatened or rare ecosystems;
- Areas that provide critical ecosystem services (e.g., hydrological services, erosion control, fire control);
- Areas that are fundamental for meeting the basic needs of local communities (e.g., for essential food, fuel, fodder, medicines or building materials without readily available alternatives); and
- Areas that are critical for the traditional cultural identity of communities (e.g., areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in collaboration with the communities).
Additionality and Quantification Procedures
Additionality Requirements
The additionality tests for CCB Standards are project-based and specified by individual methodologies.
The CCB Standards requires:
Step 1: Regulatory Surplus: Project developers must prove that existing laws or regulations would not have required that project activities be undertaken anyway. The standard also allows for project developers to make claims when a law is in existence but is not enforced.
Step 2: Barriers: Financial, Lack of Capacity, Institutional or Market Barriers or Common Practice: Several additionality tests are required. The project proponents must provide analyses (poverty assessments, farming knowledge assessments, remote sensing analysis, etc) showing that without the project, improved land-use practices would be unlikely to materialize.
Quantification Protocols
CCB Standards relies on methods and tools developed by other organizations and standards for their baseline calculations. Projects must use 'IPCC's 2006 Guidelines for National GHG Inventories for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (IPCC 2006 GL for AFOLU) or a more robust and detailed methodology’ ie updated from IPCC GPG.
The baseline calculations must be based on clearly defined and defendable assumptions about how project activities will alter carbon stocks and non-CO2 GHG emissions over the duration of the project or the project accounting period.
Project Approval Process
Validation and Registration
Once a project has been designed, a third-party auditor validates the project. After a review of relevant project documents, a site visit, and taking account of the comments received during a 30-day public comment period, the auditor approves or rejects the project.
The CCB Alliance responds to questions of clarification or interpretation from the auditors but does not review project documentation. The auditor issues an independent statement of conformance to CCB Standards which is posted on the CCBA website with the final audit report.
There are 14 required criteria and 3 optional criteria. Gold Level status is earned by achieving any one of the optional criteria that require demonstration of climate change adaptation benefits, exceptional community benefits for the global poor or exceptional biodiversity benefits conserving sites of high biodiversity conservation priority.
Leakage
Decreased carbon stocks or increased emissions of non- CO2 GHGs outside the project boundary resulting from project activities need to be quantified and mitigated.
The project proponents must:
- Determine the types of leakage that are expected and estimate potential offsite increases in GHGs (increases in emissions or decreases in sequestration) due to project activities. Where relevant, define and justify where leakage is most likely to take place.
- Document how any leakage will be mitigated and estimate the extent to which such impacts will be reduced by these mitigation activities.
- Subtract any likely project-related unmitigated negative offsite climate impacts from the climate benefits being claimed by the project and demonstrate that this has been included in the evaluation of net climate impact of the project.
- Non-CO2 gases must be included if they are likely to account for more than a 5% increase or decrease (in terms of CO2-equivalent) of the net change calculations (above) of the project’s overall off-site GHG emissions reductions or removals over each monitoring period.
(Climate, Community and Biodiversity Project Design Standards, Second Edition, p. 23)
Permanence
Permanence is addressed by requiring that projects identify potential risks up front and design in measures to mitigate potential reversals of carbon, community and biodiversity gains, including establishing buffer zones. Yet because CCB Standards is a project design standard, it does not have specific permanence requirements such as the issuance of temporary offsets.
Monitoring, Verification and Certification
To keep its CCB Standards validation, each project must be verified every 5 years. Verification includes a project document review by the auditor and a site visit to check on project implementation and monitoring results in addition to any changes in project design.
The validation and the verification can be done by the same auditor. All current CCB Standards projects are less than 5 years old and have therefore not yet been verified. The CCBA intends to develop and publish further rules and guidance on project verification.
The CCB Standards verification does not include a quantitative certification of the carbon benefits but is a qualitative evaluation that confirms carbon benefits as well as the environmental and social benefits of the project.
Registries and Fees
Because CCB Standards is a project design standard it does not have a registry accredited for its offsets.
Cost for validation of a project rages from €5,000 to €25,000. If the validation is being done in conjunction with CDM or VCS, the cost of CCB Standards validation is lower than for stand alone projects, because many of the requirements for CCB Standards will already have been fulfilled through the CDM or VCS requirements (e.g. baseline calculations).
Selected Issues
Project Design Standard
The CCB Standards is intended to be used as a design tool to ensure that robust multiple-benefits will be delivered. Project design standards for forestry projects are especially valuable and important, since carbon verification standards typically do not come into play until many years after the project has been designed and after upfront investment has been secured. Projects that create positive social and environmental impacts are attractive to many buyers because they generate co-benefits and may reduce risk of non-delivery or non-permanence of emissions reductions.
Co-Benefits
CCB Standards emphasizes the social and environmental benefits of projects and has compiled a list of useful tools and guidelines to ensure and measure these co-benefits. Some of their criteria are quite specific (e.g. biodiversity rules) while others are defined in very general terms (e.g. stakeholder and capacity-building rules). Using general language to define requirements gives the project developer the flexibility to address the issue in a way that best fits the project, but it also places more onus on the auditor’s judgment when making the assessment. Quality of projects can therefore only be assured if auditors are truly independent and adhere to high standards in their work.
No Separation of Verification and Approval of Projects
Under the CCB Standards, it is the auditors themselves that approve projects. Given the pressures on auditors and conflict of interest discussed earlier, we see the lack of an accrediting board as a potential weakness of the CCB Standards.
The CCBA is currently working fairly actively with auditors, because the validation procedures have only recently been defined and some initial guidance was needed. Also, the CCBA was soliciting auditor feedback to help inform the development of the Second Edition of the CCB Standards (developed in 2008). However, CCBA expects to have less and less engagement with projects and auditors. This separation of CCBA, auditors and project developers is needed since it helps minimize a potential conflict of interest between the project developer and the CCB Standards.
References
The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) http://www.climate-standards.org