Mato Grosso seeks forward-thinking corporate partners to complete its transition to a forest-positive, climate-neutral economy through the sale of jurisdictional REDD+ results-based Certificates. Companies can fund emissions reductions acheived and finance the future forest carbon supply all in one transaction.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
As our team receives additional questions, we will populate additional FAQs here. Have a question? email info@vibrantplanet.net
What is jurisdictional REDD+?
Jurisdictional REDD+ is an integrated, jurisdiction-wide accounting framework that enhances environmental integrity by ensuring all projects that reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation activities in a state or province within a given country are developed using consistent baselines, crediting, monitoring and verification standards. The ultimate goal of jurisdictional REDD+ is to ensure emission reductions “add up” at the jurisdictional level, national or sub-national, with each participant receiving proper credit for their contribution. The framework was designed in a way that mitigates the risk of “leakage”(meaning the displacement of emission-causing activities and/or unplanned disturbances).
What are jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates and how do they work?
The government of Brazil allocated each state, including Mato Grosso jurisdictional emissions reductions (ER’s) by the National REDD+ Council (CONAREDD). Each State can then monetize these ER’s through transactions with governments or companies. When a transaction takes place, the Ministry of Environment records the transaction in the InfoHub registry and issues a J-REDD Certificate to the contributor, documenting the volume of ERs that were retired through the contribution and the name of the entity that made the contribution.
Mato Grosso has a results-based-payment contract with the governments of Germany and UK to issue Certificates representing [10] million tons of CO2 for the 2018-2020 period.
To account for leakage, permanence and uncertainty in emissions reductions estimates, Mato Grosso will set aside one ton of emissions reductions for every ton that is transacted, as it is doing currently in its sale of Certificates to Germany and the UK.
Certificates representing an additional 10 million tons are now being offered to the private sector at a floor price of $5 per ton of CO2 plus a transaction fee to cover funds disbursement, capacity building of indigenous. Up to 100 million tons will be offered by the end of 2022.
Once a buyer makes the purchase, the Certificate stating the company’s name and the number of ERs being retired is published in the Brazilian national InfoHub registry (see example). Once retired, ER’s can never be issued again or traded. Although the transaction does not involve a credit transfer to the buyer, it does affirm formal recognition of the buyer’s mitigation contribution.Companies that acquire Certificates from Mato Grosso will be able to claim contributions to reducing global emissions through the “results-based-payments” mechanism recognized in Article 5 of the Paris Agreement. This mechanism is the basis of approximately $1.8 billion in transactions between Brazil and international entities thus far.
ERs registered in the InfoHub will be counted by Brazil towards its “Nationally Determined Contribution” to the Paris Agreement. No nation other than Brazil may claim these ERs, including the purchaser’s headquarters country.
Once a Certificate purchase is completed through the Eco Mercado platform, funds are transferred to a US 501c3 charity, exempting the contributor from tax obligations, providing bank account of the PCI Institute (a Brazilian non-profit created to support Mato Grosso’s “Produce, Conserve, Include Strategy.”) PCI Institute receives, manages and disburses funds to the program beneficiaries. Earth Innovation Institute, a US 501c3 nonprofit, is responsible for financial oversight. Companies can also purchase Certificates via a tax exempt charitable contribution to Earth Innovation Institute.
Once Certificates are purchased through Eco Mercado, funds are deposited in the bank account of the PCI Institute, a Brazilian non-profit created to manage and support Mato Grosso’s “Produce, Conserve, Include Strategy.” PCI Institute receives, manages and disburses funds to the program beneficiaries with Earth Innovation Institute, a US 501c3 nonprofit, responsible for financial oversight. Companies can also purchase Certificates via a tax exempt charitable contribution to Earth Innovation Institute.
The Distribution of the funds to farmers, indigenous peoples, and other groups will be made by the Mato Grosso State REDD+ Governance Boardlegal framework1 in consultation with Mato Grosso’s Climate Change Forum2, and in accordance with the stringent protocols already established under the REM program of payments for results from the governments of Germany and the UK to the government of Mato Grosso.3
What is Brazil’s InfoHub?
In 2013, the UN Climate Change negotiation process established the Lima REDD+ Information Hub on the REDD+ Web Platform as a means of publishing compiled information on the results of international REDD+ activities, and corresponding results-based payments to farmers and indigenous tribes. The Lima REDD+ Information Hub aims to increase transparency of information on REDD+ results-based actions.
The Brazil InfoHub is the national platform that reports to the international Lima Hub.
For each REDD+ result that has been reported in a technical annex on REDD+ results to the biennial update reports and has undergone a technical analysis, the Lima REDD+ Information Hub contains one entry.
How are the emissions reductions associated with Certificates validated and verified?
REDD+ Certificates, are validated in three ways:
1. The Brazilian government has a detailed protocol for verifying emissions reductions in the Amazon forest biome. Verified Certificates are registered in the national platform, “InfoHub REDD+ Brazil”;
Two additional verification processes will be implemented by Q3 of 2022.
2. The state of Mato Grosso will institute its REDD+ scientific committee and will advise and subsidize the other bodies of the State REDD+ System on the methods, parameters and technical and scientific criteria adopted within the scope of the state REDD+ System4; and the state tracks deforestation in near real-time with an advanced remote sensing system that includes Planet imagery;
3. An expert committee will be formed in 2022 to review and validate scientific publications, as well as Brazil’s country level data and Mato Grosso state data before any transactions are facilitated.
In addition, the Eco Mercado experience, currently in development, will feature tree-level views of forest cover and health, and will be powered, in part, by peer-reviewed, tree-level remote sensed data developed by UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research and GeoEcoMap.
How does carbon accounting for jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates work?
Companies that purchase Certificates are making a contribution to the world’s leading jurisdictional REDD+ program that has already reduced emissions from deforestation by 3 billion tons CO2eq and is on a path to reduce by an additional [3] billion tons. The transaction mechanism, is similar to the transaction pathway #2 of the LEAF Coalition. The ERs counted in Certificates derive from Brazil and are not being transferred to the buyer, thus no nation other than Brazil may claim these ERs, including the purchaser’s headquarters country. This is important to avoid double counting by countries of carbon removed from the atmosphere.
Once a buyer makes the purchase, the Certificate stating the company’s name and the number of ERs (expressed in tons of CO2) being retired is published in the Brazilian national InfoHub registry, “REDD+ Brazil”. Once retired, ER’s can never be issued again or traded. Although the transaction does not involve a credit transfer to the buyer, it does provide formal recognition of the buyer’s contribution to global mitigation.
What is the impact of a results-based jurisdictional REDD+ Certificate?
The anticipated results of Eco Mercado are a win positive for every key stakeholder working to protect forests.
For Net Zero “investors,” the purchase of jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates through Eco Mercado contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Certificates represent verification that farmers and indigenous peoples have taken actions to keep forests intact as carbon sinks.
For farmers and indigenous tribes, Eco Mercado is the fastest path to the funding they need, and offers a sustained incentive for them to continue to protect the forests of Mato Grosso.
For the world, writ large, Certificates acquired on the Eco Mercado marketplace will unlock longer-term forest protection by providing the seed capital needed to produce new, verified emissions reductions projects, as well as other ecosystem services such as water quantity, water quality, or biodiversity protection.
What will the proceeds from the sale of Certificates be used for?
The offering of jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates by Mato Grosso builds upon the PCI, a multi-stakeholder strategy formed in 2015, including the State Government, the Federation of Indigenous Peoples of Mato Grosso (FEPOIMT), smallholder farmers, medium-scale farmers, agribusinesses, the forest timber sector, and non-governmental organizations working to protect forests while supporting local agriculture and a forest-derived, sustainable bioeconomy5. The PCI established time-bound state-wide milestones toward 2030 goals and created the initial entree into jurisdictional REDD+ transactions at a crucial time.
The financing generated by the sale of Certificates will support:
Mato Grosso in achieving its 2030 goal of a carbon-neutral economy, including sustainable agricultural production, environmental conservation and social inclusion goals of the State’s multi-stakeholder “PCI Strategy” launched in 2015.
State-wide programs, developed through a rigorous public consultation process and benefit sharing agreement approved by the Mato Grosso “Conselho Gestor do REDD+” (REDD+ Governance Board). These programs were created as part of Mato Grosso’s partnership with German and UK governments in support of the role indigenous peoples, and small- and medium-sized farms play in forest protection. In addition, forest enterprises and enhanced law enforcement programs were developed. These programs will be improved and expanded with funding received through the sale of Certificates to companies and private foundations.
Ultimately, the sale of Certificates, through the aforementioned programs, funds farmers and indigenous peoples ability to deliver future, tradable forest carbon assets within the State of Mato Grosso.
What do buyers receive for jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates?
In addition to the feeling of pride and satisfaction for helping to stop deforestation in the Amazon and restoring sustaining a healthy rainforest in both the near and long terms, Certificate buyers can be confident their investments will also finance future forest protections in carbon, water, and biodiversity. In practical terms, Certificate buyers receive:
Preferential access to new forest carbon projects and related certificates or offsets;
Detailed reporting and imagery of forests to verify that farmers and tribes are protecting them;
Annual monitoring reports on forest health trends;
Regular updates about local community benefits and outcomes within protected areas; and
Opportunities for site visits to forests in Mato Grosso.
How does purchasing jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates improve forest health in Brazil?
Certificate transactions generate a range of improvements. They:
ensure readiness for future forest products
fund fire brigades
expand local law enforcement to guard against illegal gold mining and logging activity
safeguard and improve natural resources and other forest benefits like water and biodiversity
What is Eco Mercado?
Eco Mercado is a marketplace that facilitates transactions of forest carbon products to stop deforestation and degradation and promote restoration and reforestation, providing unprecedented tree-level monitoring and rapid, secure payments to ensure funding gets to forest protectors efficiently.
The first product being sold are jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates (“Certificates”) that represent verified emissions reductions achieved through avoided deforestation in Mato Grosso. The sale of Certificates is made possible through a partnership of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil, and Earth Innovation Institute, and focuses on two principal objectives:
1. Offering the first opportunity for companies with net-zero goals to directly obtain jurisdictional REDD certificates;
2. delivering rapid and secure payment to the farmers and indigenous peoples continually fighting to protect the forests that sustain us all.
Who created Eco Mercado?
This new partnership combines the policy and scientific leadership of Earth Innovation Institute; the technology, science, forestry and policy expertise of Vibrant Planet; and the forest carbon data leadership of Sassan Saatchi’s lab at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), culminating in a single and effective solution for tackling emissions reductions at scale. The partnership builds upon and supports Mato Grosso’s multi-stakeholder coalition, including the State Government, the Federation of Indigenous Peoples of Mato Grosso (FEPOIMT), smallholder farmers, agribusinesses, and non-governmental NGOs. All partners seek to protect forests while supporting local agriculture and a forest-derived, sustainable bioeconomy.
Partner roles:
Vibrant Planet, a U.S.-based public benefit corporation, built the Eco Mercado marketplace to facilitate market solutions for keeping tropical forests intact. The first “product” for sale is jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates (Certificates) to private companies and foundations with net-zero goals; Vibrant Planet also monitors and quantifies the benefits of the transactions.
Experts from GeoEcoMap and UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability (IOES) deliver high-resolution data for Amazon-wide forest assessments to contextualize and measure forest degradation and regeneration.
Earth Innovation Institute (EII) manages the secure and prompt flow of capital to farmers, farm associations, indigenous peoples, and other land managers qualified under the InfoHub registry to receive payment for protecting critical forested areas. EII also manages relationships with the Government of Mato Grosso and coordinates with other NGOs, including PCI (Produce, Conserve, Include) Institute.
How is the partnership behind Eco Mercado different from all the partnerships attempting to slow the destruction of the Amazon forest?
Eco Mercado is the first digital marketplace making jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates available to private companies and foundations a safe and effective way to support emissions reductions in Mato Grosso. To date, Certificates have only been available to governments. Mato Grosso is one of only two advanced jurisdictional REDD programs in the world—the other being Acre State, also in Brazil.
This initiative developed through a unique collaboration of international carbon market and climate policy experts, technology leaders from the private sector and academia, and experts in the evolved carbon markets and tropical forest protection of Brazil.
As a public benefit corporation (PBC), Vibrant Planet is committed to more than financial results. It is dedicated to protecting and improving the environment, restoring the biosphere and the climate, and improving our collective wellbeing as a result. Vibrant Planet’s expertise in data engineering, technology platform building, climate policy, and forestry, combined with Sassan Saatchi/UCLA’s forest carbon science and Earth Innovation Institute’s ecology and policy leadership, delivers a holistic, trusted solution through tree-level monitoring, forecasting, and prioritization capabilities to the forest carbon and conservation sector.
Vibrant Planet has a proven track record in valuing ecosystem benefits—including carbon, water, and biodiversity—and normalizing these values against built human infrastructure values. This provides new insights on the tradeoffs, costs, and benefits associated with various land-use activities.
Why Eco Mercado?
For two decades global governments have promised to compensate land holders, including indegenous peoples, in Brazil for keeping forests intact in the form of forest carbon payments, but transactions are still years away.
Without immediate financial incentives and innovative policies to keep the Amazon intact, more forests will fall due to global demand for crops for cattle feed, grazing cattle, gold, and hardwoods. We lose 10 million hectares per year of Amazon forest. As forests fall, the region’s rainfall—which is partially dependent on the forest’s self-created weather—is at risk, threatening to increase the frequency and severity of droughts and fire, driving toward a tipping point where we will lose vast areas of forest to a mass dieback, with devastating global consequences.
Thus, the need for funding is urgent. The Eco Mercado marketplace bridges the gap by offering a safe and secure way for companies to compensate the farmers and indigenous peoples protecting forests through the purchase of verified jurisdictional REDD+ Certificates within months not years. Eco Mercado’s high resolution monitoring secure payments systems help buyers invest in forests with confidence.
What commitments do recipients of funding from jurisdictional REDD+ Certificate transactions make?
Farmers and other landholders must:
demonstrate ownership of a farm in good standing,
comply with all legal and regulatory requirements in their farming activity,
retain forest acreage over and above the 80 percent area requirement,
maintain the health of retained forest, and
commit to further retention going forward.
The Council is formed by 12 members: 03 (three) representatives of state government agencies active in issues related to REDD+, being obligatorily the participation of the State Secretariat for the Environment - SEMA, who will Preside the Council; 03 (three) invited representatives of federal government agencies working on issues related to REDD+; 01 (one) representative of each of the following civil society groups: a) forest-based sector; b) family farming; c) business agriculture; d) indigenous peoples; e) socio-environmental non-governmental organizations with recognized work on the REDD+ theme; f) class organizations with recognized work on the issue of REDD+. The members from civil society will be chosen by Mato Grosso’s Climate Change Forum (see state law n. 9878, 2013).
- Mato Grosso’s Forum on Climate Change will be chaired by the State Governor and will be composed, obligatorily, by representatives of all State Secretariats, autarchies and foundations and state public companies, whose attributions are related to climate change and, optionally, by representatives of federal public bodies or entities, non-governmental organizations, unions, associations of class, federations, Legislative Power, Judiciary and Municipal Executive Power, Public Ministry, Institutions public and private higher education (see state law n. 9111, 2009).
- For example, under the REM program being implemented in Mato Grosso, it was decided that 60% of the payments go to sub-projects in (1) smallholder agriculture, traditional populations and communities in the Amazon, Cerrado scrubland and Pantanal wetlands; (2) Indigenous peoples, and (3) sustainable production by medium-sized rural producers. The remaining 40% goes toward the institutional strengthening of the State’s governmental bodies and the application and development of Public Policies.
- The Scientific Committee will be composed of recognized researchers, technicians and specialists, invited by the President of the Management Council, with the consent of the Council, or by the Governor of the State (see state law n. 9878, 2013).
PCI Executive Committee: Government: Casa Civil, SEDEC, SEMA, SEPLAG, SEAF; Farm Sector: UNEM – National Union of Corn Ethanol; Private Sector: Agroicone, Amaggi, IDH, MarFrig; Civil Society: EII, Ecoarts, and ICV. PCI Advisory Committee: Advisory Committee: Farming Sector: FAMATO, Acrimat, Ampa, Aprofir, Aquamat, AcrismatAC; Agricultural Rountables: Cipem, Arefloresta, GTPS, Anoreg, RTRS, FIEMT, Fetagri, Fepoimt, Pecsa, Carrefour, Roncador, Althelia, ONF Brasil, Fundação Mato Grosso, IPAM, EDF, Aliança da Terra, Instituto Socio Ambiental, Amigos da Terra, Ação Verde
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