FOR PRIVATE SECTOR
It’s in every businesses’ best interest to invest in the health of the planet through nature-based carbon credits. Research from the World Economic Forum shows that at least 50% of global GDP is reliant on nature, and that climate change will significantly destabilize global trade. However, investments into protecting nature are far from where they need to be, especially in areas most impacted by climate change.
We need all solutions to battle the climate crisis, and the size and influence of the market is currently still the greatest force to move climate action. The policies, technologies and consumption shifts needed to decarbonize our economies are not happening fast enough to stop climate change. Private sector climate action needs to be bolder now more than ever.
REDD+ projects in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) are currently the most effective tool on hand to fund the large-scale protection of our planet’s forests and reach our global climate goals. As the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states, maintaining natural ecosystems is one of the most important mitigation options to fight climate change.
Conservation projects will only expand and succeed at the scale needed to effectively stop deforestation if the private sector takes accountability and invests in market mechanisms such as REDD+. Investing in forest communities, who are safeguarding the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet, is a key way to take climate action now.
Criticisms against carbon credits primarily come from those who are disconnected from the transformative positive impacts that high quality, community-centered forest carbon projects can have. These criticisms ignore the perspectives of forest communities in the Global South who are in support of rights-based REDD+ projects.
Research shows that companies engaged in purchasing carbon credits are overwhelmingly the ones that do the most to cut their own emissions, moving twice as fast to decarbonize as those that are not.
We continue to encourage our buyers to decarbonize their businesses first and report their emissions, their impacts on biodiversity loss, and to use high quality forest carbon credits as an essential tool to protect forests to meet our Paris Agreement goals.
Wildlife Works projects have measurable and verifiable positive impacts for:
COMMUNITIES
Our projects’ investments in the development plans of our community partners have already delivered multi-generational impacts. For example, student scholarship recipients at our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project are coming back to the area from university as teachers and leaders in their community.
BIODIVERSITY
Both Kasigau Corridor and Mai Ndombe REDD+ projects have seen the return of key focal wildlife species after the start of the project.
OUR CLIMATE
1.7 million hectares of threatened forests protected, preventing 53 million tons of carbon emissions from being emitted.
Wildlife Works’ is a leader in
rights-based REDD+
Wildlife Works’ is a leader in rights-based REDD+, with over 25 years of experience partnering directly with forest communities developing market-based conservation solutions. We were the first to deliver third-party verified avoided deforestation REDD+ credits, and our projects are highly regarded for transparency, scientific rigor, and most importantly, for respecting local community rights.
Learn more about our market leadership.