Activities - REDD+ Business Initiative

RBI takes action

The REDD+ Business Initiative aims to support the further development of the UN’s REDD+ mechanism as referred to in article 5 of the Paris Agreement. To that end we provide relevant information to businesses, support businesses to join and governments to create the proper pre-conditions.

Awareness raising

Support to members

Flagship Projects

Advocacy en lobby

Awareness raising

RBI aims to raise awareness about the urgency of halting deforestation and the potential of REDD+ through public events, newsletters and by lobbying governments around the world.

But the best way to really understand what’s at stake, is to see the devastation caused by deforestation (and how it can be stopped) with your own eyes. That’s why RBI offers the possibility to visit flagship projects. Like our visit to Tambopata in 2014.

Support to members

Providing up to date information on Deforestation, REDD+ and the Carbon Market

RBI has a large network in the world of businesses, science and NGOs, which gives us direct access to a wealth of information on the carbon market and on international REDD+ developments. We share the collected information and knowledge online and in our members meetings, where we discuss new developments, experiences and challenges. The secretariat is easily accessible for any additional information you might need.

Providing guidance on incorporating REDD+ in your business strategy

Incorporating carbon credits into your business strategy is pioneers work, and RBI is here to offer you step by step support in how to go about this.

The first step is to measure the impact of your company or product, followed by reducing the impact wherever possible and as a final step offsetting the unavoidable emissions. As the voluntary carbon market is still fragmented and in an early phase of maturity, most companies need guidance on how to participate in a safe and reliable way.

Therefore RBI is helping members by giving them:

access to reliable producers of REDD+ credits;
the possibility to purchase credits (or sustainable commodities) from RBIs flagship project where potential risks around REDD+ are adequately managed.

Calculate your carbon footprint through the REDD+ Business Initiative

You can use the free online carbon calculator, developed by Ecosphere+, to measure your carbon footprint. This calculation is a first step towards incorporating REDD+ into your business strategy.

CALCULATOR

Flagship projects

RBI works with flagship projects from which reliable REDD+ credits can be bought. The projects, in which the members collectively invest, show how REDD+ works in practice and serve as a learning experience for all members. As our first flagship Tambopata is almost sold out, we have recently added the Sumatra Merang Peatland project and the Nii Kaniti project to our list of flagships.

Tambopata Nature Reserve

Tambopata

Tambopata is a nature reserve bordering the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park situated in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon. The project covers nearly 600,000 hectares of protected rainforest (the size of North and South Holland combined) and a buffer zone of commercially viable cacao agroforestry. In this project farmers can take out loans to improve cacao cultivation and are helped to sell their fairtrade products around the world. Our support is critical. Since 2013 the members of the REDD+ Business Initiative have purchased credits to the equivalent of 2,8 million tonnes of CO2 from Tambopata.

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Sumatra Merang Peatland

Sumatra Merang Peatland

The Sumatra Merang project works to restore more than 23,000 hectares of peatland rainforest in the Merang biodiversity zone in Indonesia, one of the largest and deepest peat swamp areas in South Sumatra. Climate finance is used to rehabilitate and protect this critical ecosystem at risk of drainage and exploitation from acacia and palm oil plantations. This prevents the release of significant volumes of emissions, while creating a conservation area for hundreds of unique and endangered species such as the Sumatran Tiger. This project focuses on working with surrounding villages through a community development fund, which supports community-selected activities.

The Indonesian government is currently undertaking an evaluation to optimize the sale of credits to foreign companies. This proactive step is intended to safeguard the interests of all parties involved. Upon a favorable conclusion of this evaluation, the sale of credits will be able to resume.

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Nii Kaniti Community Forest

Nii Kaniti

The Nii Kaniti project is located in Eastern Peru. The focus in this project lies on scaling up sustainable forest management with seven local communities. The project addresses the local, economic drivers of deforestation and forest degradation by supporting the development of socially inclusive businesses, such as FSC certified timber extraction, cacao agroforestry and indigenous handicrafts. The project area, on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest, is home to multiple threatened species, including the jaguar and blue-headed macaw. By protecting over 116,000 hectares of critical rainforest ecosystem, the project has to date avoided over 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂.

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Advocacy and lobby

RBI aims to make REDD+ work by stimulating demand for carbon credits and by mobilizing support from governments. With the ultimate goal to save the rainforest.

Stimulate demand for REDD+ carbon credits

The voluntary carbon market is developing quickly and REDD+ projects are playing a major role. This means that substantial funding has become available for forest conservation in the tropics. RBI members have played a substantial role in this positive development since 2013. By the end of 2020, the member companies of the REDD+ Business Initiative had purchased a total of 17,1 million tonnes of CO2, which represents about 10% of the total volume of the purchases from certified REDD+ projects. RBI aims to use the lessons learned from these projects for strengthening the market and to get REDD+ fully integrated in the formal implementation of the Paris Agreement. In order to ensure that our voice will be heard in the future we aim for doubling our impact by 2025.

Stimulate support from governments

For the further develop and implementation of REDD+, a joint effort by governments and companies is needed. The Paris Agreement has serious implications for the voluntary CO2-market. It is in the interest of RBI that, after 2020, credits from REDD+ projects can be claimed by its members for reaching carbon neutrality, just like before.

Therefore the REDD+ Business Initiative calls on governments of both rainforest nations and the home countries of the companies investing in REDD+, to acknowledge and support early voluntary action by businesses and to ensure that they can continue to make their carbon neutral claims under the Paris Agreement. This will ensure the much needed financial support for forest conservation, which is essential for both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation on a global scale.

We have conveyed our message in meetings with Frans Timmermans (Executive vice-president of the European Commission) as well as the Dutch Government and will continue to do so.

Impacts and results

Since the official start of the REDD+ Business Initiative in 2013, our members have purchased credits from certified REDD+ projects to the equivalent of 17,1 MtCO2. This equals to capturing and storing half of the emissions of the Shell refinery in Rotterdam, or to get 1 million cars off the road during that same period. Our goal is to double our impact by 2025.

Almost three million credits of the total purchase came from our flagship project in Peru, developed by RBI’s member Ecosphere+. The emission reduction realized in Tambopata came with important co-benefits as the table shows.

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Avoided emissions
(tCO2)