Colombian standard Cercarbono expects to certify only a handful of biodiversity credit projects in 2025, hoping to have enough initiatives in its pipeline to test the standard during its first year.

Speaking to Carbon Pulse, Cercarbono’s CEO Alex Saer said to date the only project developer with the capacity to be registered under the standard is Savimbo, the US-based company that designed the methodology Cercarbono adopted.

“By the end of 2024, we expect to receive and register the project that Savimbo is implementing in cooperation with Indigenous Peoples in the Putumayo region of the Colombian Amazon,” Saer said.

“Next year, there will probably be two or maybe three other projects with the potential to be certified. But honestly, I’ll be happy if we can register one more project in addition to Savimbo’s.”

Last week, Cercarbono announced the approval of the Indicator Species Biodiversity Methodology (ISBM) as its first methodology for conservation projects under their Biodiversity Certification Programme Protocol, officially released in March.

Under the methodology, units are area-based and correspond to one hectare of land conserved for one month, with measured integrity reported on a scale from 0-1, where full integrity is an ecosystem with every ecological niche available to, and filled by, native species.

Currently, Cercarbono is in conversation with several project developers operating in Latin America, including the Swiss-headquartered Environmental Markets Fairness Foundation, which is piloting two separate biodiversity credit projects in Argentina in partnership with two local NGOs.

In the last few months, several initiatives have emerged in Latin America to generate and issue biodiversity credits by year-end, as the world prepares for the UN biodiversity summit COP16, to be held in Cali, Colombia, from Oct. 21 – Nov. 1.

“Many project developers have set their own standards and plan to sell the credits they generate, keeping the entire value chain within one actor. In contrast, our framework requires them to engage independent third-party certifiers,” Saer said.

“That’s why, in the short term, I believe that only a few of them will be ready to be registered under our standard in 2025.”

Saer said that even the projects they will certify are expected to have “room for risk” since the market is still in its very early stages.

“Next year, we will implement what we defined as an innovation phase, with the first credits labelled as ‘innovation credits’ in a bid to make companies that are going to buy them aware of the risks,” he said.

“We aim to have two or three projects in the pipeline to be able to test the standard. We’re still building the market, and we need to be able to learn and adjust the mechanism on the run.”

HARD TO VERIFY

Due to the complex nature of ecosystems and the variety of communities involved, Saer considers biodiversity credits to be more complicated to verify than carbon.

During its first phase, Cercarbono will establish an internal expert panel to validate and verify the projects.

“We are going to rely on experts who have specific knowledge on the activities that are going to be certified,” he said.

“Furthermore, we will involve external auditors, probably from traditional validation and verification standards (VVSs), that will check the contracts.”

As for the registry, Cercarbono plans to rely on its partner EcoRegistry. “It is a consolidated registry in the carbon market that will guarantee protection for double issuance and prevent double claiming,” he said.

To date, standard setters have been regarded as one of the key players in the nascent biodiversity credit markets, as issues linked to credibility have significantly hit the carbon space.

In July, a group of academics launched a community-focused standard called Fair Credits Standard for high-integrity carbon and biodiversity credits, focused on safeguarding Indigenous Peoples and local communities during the whole process.

In its second report released in April, the UN-backed Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) said that building a transparent and rigorous assessment process for credit standards and methodologies is a crucial step to establishing a credible market.

By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com

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