Case Study

 

Developing the ‘Trees for Cities Offsetting Protocol’

 
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“It is important for Trees for Cities that we provide a trusted, professional and verified environmental offset service that companies can happily and safely report against. This is why we approached Carbon Smart to help develop our protocol. Their track record is exemplary and they provided a fantastic service to Trees for Cities. They showed great understanding and knowledge. The result is a protocol that we are proud of and that we can deliver the service to ISO guidelines.” 

Rory Field Corporate Partnership Manager, Trees for Cities

The challenge

Trees for Cities (TFC) is an independent charity working on an international scale to create greener cities. Since 1993, TFC has engaged over 70,000 people to plant nearly 700,000 urban trees in parks, streets, schools, and housing estates across the UK and internationally. The trees planted by TFC have a broad range of social and environmental benefits.

Carbon Smart was selected by TFC first in 2006 to calculate the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered by each tree planted. This work formed the basis of a new corporate offsetting service which TFC subsequently offered to its clients. Ten years later, and with an offset service, which now extends beyond carbon to air pollutants, paper and tree felling, TFC wanted to increase transparency by documenting the robust and verifiable approach they take to offsetting. TFC approached Carbon Smart to develop the ‘Trees for Cities Offsetting Protocol’, with the aim of clearly laying out the process followed, and the evidence compiled, to confirm the additionality of all calculated offsets.

The process

Carbon Smart initially engaged with TFC to understand the process that TFC follows to define the baseline scenario of each project and to calculate the offsets associated with the four different offsetting services TFC currently offer; carbon, air pollution, paper, and tree felling offsetting. We subsequently worked with TFC to ensure that sufficient evidence was being compiled to demonstrate project eligibility including documentation to confirm project timescales, minimum requirements of land use terms and conditions and so on. Finally, we reviewed TFC’s process for describing the tree planting and management schedule that will be followed over the project life span, including planting ratios, species selection, ongoing tree management and project monitoring.

We assessed these steps against the six core principles of ISO 14064-2 (relevance, completeness, consistency, accuracy, transparency, and conservativeness) to ensure that the offsets offered by TFC to clients are:

  • Additional – a key concept of any offset project. By evidencing an offsets additionality, TFC demonstrate to clients that the project benefit (e.g. carbon reductions or the replacement of felled trees) would not have occurred in the absence of the project in question being financed by the client and delivered by TFC.
  • Real and measurable – projects must be quantifiable, and sufficient evidence must be compiled to ensure that projects have been delivered
  • Conservative – all offset calculations should be based on conservative assumptions, values and procedures to ensure offsets are not overstated
  • Traceable – projects must be transparently listed and documented to ensure that trees and offsets are not double counted
  • Permeant – projects must have measures in place to ensure trees are in situ for the defined project timescales

Having reviewed TFC’s current process, industry best practice and evaluated the available evidence in each project required to meet the above points, Carbon Smart wrote both the ‘Trees for Cities Offset Protocol’ and an accompanying verification procedure.

The result

The ‘Trees for Cities Offsetting Protocol’ sets out the steps that TFC must follow, and the evidence that TFC must compile, to demonstrate the additionality and veracity of any offsets offered to clients. TFC shares this Protocol with clients to demonstrate their transparency at each step of offset project.

In addition to the Protocol, Carbon Smart developed a verification procedure which, when followed, will independently verify, upon the initiation of a new project, that TFC has appropriately followed the requirements of the Protocol. Once Carbon Smart is satisfied that TFC has met the requirements defined in their Protocol, we will issue TFC and its clients with a Carbon Smart Verification Certificate (CSVC).

A CSVC demonstrates that the TFC offsets purchased are credible, are additional (i.e. would not have occurred without their project financing) and have been accurately and transparently calculated (i.e. offsets have not been overestimated).