World’s first REDD credits issued under the VCS

On Feb 2011, world’s first Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) credits were issued under the VCS. This news has come out just after the announcement of changing VCS’s title from Voluntary Carbon Standard to Verified Carbon Standards. This project generated approximately 1.45 million credits for its first six-year monitoring period (One credit=1 ton of CO₂).

As per the news on VCS website, these credits were issued to the Kasigau corridor REDD project – Phase I, developed by Wildlife Works in the Rukinga Sanctuary, an area of semi-arid tropical forest in Southeast Kenya. Wildlife Works developed a new methodology to calculate the GHG emissions curbed by project activities and had the methodology approved for use under the VCS Program. (Read full story on VCS Website)

VCS: Verified carbon standard is a concrete platform provides global standard and   approval procedures to generate credible voluntary offsets. First version of the VCS was released on 28 March 2006 and presently VCS 2007.1 is in use worldwide. It is a quality standard for voluntary carbon offset industry. It’s criteria for validating, measuring, and monitoring carbon offset projects is based on CDM methodologies under the Kyoto protocol.  VCS also has its own methodologies based on GHG accounting, validation and monitoring procedures. (More)

Image credit: Jami Dwyer

KQBD5NG9D259