Pragmatic urgency – speeding up on REDD

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REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and REDD plus. Everyone’s talking about it. Currently forest loss is thought to contribute between 12 and 17 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions and the commitment to focus on REDD was one of the few positive outcomes from Copenhagen in December.

But despite the allocation of significant public funding, including more than 64million USD from the UN-REDD programme, it’s frustratingly slow. Many of our clients are interested in forestry now to help them in their carbon reduction and climate mitigation activities: it’s a well known significant contributor to climate change which is understood by consumers and stakeholders, plus many projects have positive and compelling stories about benefits to local communities. A reforestation project in the southern highlands of Tanzania, the first in Africa to be VCS validated, was bought by clients within weeks of becoming available, attractive because of its trees, location and school support and infrastructure building programme.

We’d like to engage REDD projects for our clients and have been talking to three possible partners, each representing a slightly different REDD proposal, each at a different stage of development, and each ripe for investment: 

- a local community forest and wildlife protection project in Kenya which is approved by the CCBA;
- projects in post war reconstruction zones throughout Africa which provide initial technical support and capacity building to develop self-supporting carbon initiatives;
- and a diverse portfolio of carbon credits from a range of projects protecting against tropical deforestation.

But what is the appetite from business leaders to take action on REDD? What sort of risk are they willing to take? And how will they measure their returns?

 

We don’t know the answers and on a warm Wednesday night in Soho we gathered twelve executives to debate these issues. The discussion ranged from the general -“democracy is not serving climate change well”- to the specific - “these people are tired of charity and would much rather have a job.” Along the way we covered cowboys acquiring land rights in Papua New Guinea, turning REDD into an asset class, businesses needing to protect their supply chain and the appetite for risk versus return. The interests around the table were diverse - from large financial institutions to not for profit forestry specialists to businesses with significant carbon reduction commitments - so, unsurprisingly, the opinions also varied widely. However, my three key takeaways could be summarised as follows:

 

Firstly, there isn’t a perfect solution for businesses to guarantee a return on REDD at this point in time. We know REDD is crucial in the climate change battle and lots of people and organisations are experimenting and discussing, but in order to learn and progress we need to take a few risks.

 

Secondly, certainly in the short term, we need think about something other than a traditional verified carbon offset offering - although reducing emissions is a key driver, many of the REDD projects underway also have terrific stories to tell about water and eco-system protection and local community support and empowerment which will be compelling for clients. We need to package these projects to enable clients to have a measurable asset, in addition to a powerful corporate responsibility activity.

 

And finally, ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good’ is an increasingly over-used phrase these days, but ‘pragmatic urgency’ seems to sum up the situation - taking action on REDD now will have a powerful impact on global greenhouse gas emissions so let’s present businesses with opportunities which are both persuasive and realistic about the risks and returns.

 

If you’d like to read more about the REDD executive discussion we held last Wednesday please email us and we’ll send you the report.

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