Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance

The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) is an initiative led by Conservation International

Conservation International

Conservation International is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, which seeks to ensure the health of humanity by protecting Earth's ecosystems and biodiversity. CI’s work focuses on six key initiatives that affect human well-being: climate, food security, freshwater...

, CARE, The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive....

, Rainforest Alliance

Rainforest Alliance

The Rainforest Alliance is a non-governmental organization with the published aims of working to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. It is based in New York City, and has offices throughout the...

, and the Wildlife Conservation Society

Wildlife Conservation Society

The Wildlife Conservation Society based at the Bronx Zoo was founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society and currently manages some of wild places around the world, with over 500 field conservation projects in 60 countries, and 200 scientists on staff...

to promote the development of land management activities that simultaneously deliver significant benefits for climate, local communities, and biodiversity.

The CCBA was established in 2003 and works to increase public and private investment in forest protection, restoration and agroforestry by developing standards that enable policy makers and project developers to demonstrate the delivery of social and environmental benefits from activities that reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.

The CCBA has two major initiatives:

The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards, which are in use by more than 100 projects around the world. The Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards enable investors, policymakers, project managers and civil society observers to evaluate land-based climate change mitigation projects by identifying high-quality projects that adopt best practices to generate significant benefits for local communities and biodiversity while delivering credible and robust carbon offsets.

The REDD+ Social and Environmental Standards are a being developed in collaboration with the governments of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

and Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

to enable government programs to demonstrate that their programs for reducing emissions from land are designed and implemented in a way that ensures a high level of social and environmental performance.

History of the Standards

The development of the CCB Standards aims to be an inclusive and transparent process. The first draft was written by the NGO members of the CCBA and opened to the public for a 3-month comment period in 2004. Community and environmental groups, companies, academics, project developers and others contributed comments. The draft Standards were then field-tested on existing and planned projects in Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, and Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

. Based on the public comments and field test results a second draft was created and turned over to three independent Advising Institutions. These institutions worked with the original Standards authors to produce the First Edition of the Standards, which was released in May 2005.

In February 2008 the CCBA began a revision of the Standards as described in the Terms of Reference, Procedures and Work Plan for the Revision of the CCB Standards. The CCB Standards was revised by a Standards Committee composed of a diverse range of interested parties with expertise relevant to the subject matter of the standards and/or materially affected by them. The revision process was completed in December 2008, and the CCB Standards Second Edition was launched on Dec 6, 2008, at Forest Day 2 in Poznan, Poland..

Use of the CCB Standards

The CCB Standards have become a widely used international standard for the multiple-benefits of land-based carbon projects. The CCB Standards provide rules and guidance to encourage effective and integrated project design. The Standards can be applied early on during a project’s design phase to validate projects that have been well designed, are suitable to local conditions and are likely to achieve significant climate, community and biodiversity benefits. This validation helps to build support for the project at a crucial stage and attract funding or other assistance from key stakeholders, including investors, governments and other important local, national and international partners. The CCB Standards can be applied throughout the life of the project to evaluate the social and environmental impacts of land based carbon projects. The standards can be combined very effectively with a carbon accounting standard, such as, the CarbonFix Standard

CarbonFix Standard

The CarbonFix Standard is an initiative supported by over 60 organisations promotes the development of climate forestation projects to sequester carbon from the atmosphere...

(CFS), the Clean Development Mechanism

Clean Development Mechanism

The Clean Development Mechanism is one of the "flexibility" mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol . It is defined in Article 12 of the Protocol, and is intended to meet two objectives: to assist parties not included in Annex I in achieving sustainable development and in contributing to the...

(CDM) or the Voluntary Carbon Standard

Voluntary Carbon Standard

The Verified Carbon Standard formerly the Voluntary Carbon Standard is a quality standard for voluntary carbon offset industry. Based on the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, VCS establishes criteria for validating, measuring, and monitoring carbon offset projects....

(VCS).

As of December 2010, a total of 28 projects have completed validation, and 23 other projects have initiated the validation process. Of these 51 projects, 41 are in developing countries and represent exciting initiatives to stimulate investment, jobs, biodiversity conservation and many other social and environmental benefits. At least 100 projects are planning to use the standards, representing over 7 million ha of conservation and over 370,000 ha of restoration of native forests with total estimated annual emissions reductions of over 12.7 million tons annually.

Structure of the CCB Standards

The Standards comprise fourteen required criteria and three optional "Gold Level” criteria. Once a project has been designed, a third-party evaluator will use indicators to determine if individual criteria are satisfied. Only projects that use best practices and deliver significant climate, community and biodiversity benefits will earn CCB approval. Gold status is awarded to projects that satisfy one of the optional criteria by providing exceptional benefits including explicit design for adaptation to climate change, benefits for globally poorer communities, or conservation of biodiversity at sites of global conservation significance.
The Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards may be beneficial to a wide variety of users.

Project Developers can use the CCB Standards to develop projects that deliver a suite of environmental and community benefits. Projects that meet the Standards may garner new investments from multiple funders and supporters.

Project Investors can use the CCB Standards to identify exceptional initiatives and minimize risks. Projects using the Standards are unlikely to become tied up with controversy and roadblocks. Multiple-benefit projects generate valuable goodwill for investors by fostering synergistic and innovative solutions.

Governments hosting projects can use the Standards to ensure that projects contribute to national sustainable development goals. Donor governments can use the Standards to pinpoint official development aid projects that satisfy multiple international obligations, such as the Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...

and the UN conventions on Climate Change and Biological Diversity.

CCB Standards Validation and Verification Process

An internal desk review of the project design against the CCB Standards (download a copy of the CCB Standards at www.climate-standards.org) would be the first step. This is best be done by someone familiar with the project so they can quickly check against each Standards criterion, and should take less than a day. From this, one will see whether there are things the project needs to revise in its design, or documentation (evidence) that needs to be gathered for the audit.

The next step would be to hire an independent certifier to do the CCB audit and validate the project. Currently, eligible CCB certifiers are the CDM certifiers (Designated Operational Entities - DOEs), like SGS

Société Générale de Surveillance

SGS S.A. provides inspection, verification, testing and certification services. With more than 67,000 employees, SGS operates of over 1,250 offices and laboratories around the world....

, TÜV SÜD

TÜV SÜD

TÜV SÜD is an international service corporation focusing on consulting, testing, certification and training. At over 600 locations, primarily in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, TÜV SÜD Group employs approximately 16,000 staff. In 2010, sales revenues totalled EUR 1.55 billion, roughly 30 per...

, etc., or the Forest Stewardship Council

Forest Stewardship Council

The Forest Stewardship Council is an international not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. Its main tools for achieving this are standard setting, independent certification and labeling of forest products...

(FSC) certifiers (e.g., Rainforest Alliance

Rainforest Alliance

).
Once an independent certifier is chosen, a project design document can be created, with the assistance of the CCB Validation Guidance document, and submitted to the CCBA for validation. The CCB audit and validation should take about two months or sometimes more depending on the audit findings. Typically, the CCB auditor reviews all the project documents and once they find that the documentation is sufficient and appropriate to proceed with an audit they forward the documents to the CCBA for the mandatory public comment period. Once the auditor evaluates the responses they write up the final audit & validation report and forward this with their statement of conformance to CCB Standards to the CCBA for publication on the CCBA website. Then the project would be deemed “CCB validated”.

Combined Use with Other Certification Systems

The CCB Standards can be combined with many other standards, such as the Clean Development Mechanism

Clean Development Mechanism

, or the Voluntary Carbon Standard

Voluntary Carbon Standard

. In this case, the CCB Standards provide a basis for evaluating a project’s social and environmental impact, while the carbon accounting standard enables verification and registration of quantified greenhouse gas emissions reductions or removals. In this way, the CCB Standards verify the social and environmental benefits generated by the project, enabling investors to select carbon credits with additional benefits, while screening out projects with unacceptable social and environmental impacts.

External links

http://www.care.org
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org
http://www.nature.org
http://www.wcs.org
http://www.conservation.org
http://www.CarbonFix.info