Near All-time high for Voluntary offsets in 2018; largely due to REDD+ projects in Peru
Ecosystem Marketplace (EM) tracked transactions of voluntary carbon offsets for 2018 representing emission reductions equivalent to 98.4 MtCO2 e2 with a market value of $295.7 million. This represents a 52.6% increase in volume and a 48.5% increase in value compared to 2016. A staggering 57% of the overall increase in volume came from one country, Peru, and was driven by one market category, Forestry and Land Use. Within the Forestry and Land Use category, volume from REDD+ projects, focused on forest conservation, increased 187%, from 10.6 MtCO2 e in 2016 to 30.5 MtCO2 e in 2018, with almost all of the increase concentrated in REDD+ projects in Peru. Peru led the world in REDD+ activity in 2018, and it accounted for virtually all of the increase in REDD+ transactions from 2016 through 2018.
Driving the surge is a government-led “nesting” model in Peru that supports REDD+ projects. Peru’s nesting program was piloted with projects verified under both VCS and CCBA in the country’s Natural Protected Areas (NPA), which are National Parks, National Reserves, and Communal Reserves, and has recently been extended to all REDD+ carbon projects in the country. It makes it possible for the country to deduct a project’s exported emissions reductions from the national inventory in the future.
