To Protect or Restore? The Big Forest Question

Last week in New York, we were delighted to welcome an audience of over one hundred including senior sustainability professionals, carbon markets actors and influential civil society organizations for a lively and engaging discussion on the need to both protect and restore forests, the barriers to corporate engagement and possible solutions.

The panel, moderated by Giulia Carbone, Director of the NCS Alliance, brought together the heads of the two largest advance commitment initiatives focused on nature, Julia Strong of Symbiosis and Eron Bloomgarden of the LEAF Coalition, climate scientist, Dr Sarah Federman of Carbon Direct, Jennifer Tauli Corpuz, of Nia Tero, representing the perspective of Indigenous Peoples, and Tim Christophersen of Salesforce, a member of both coalitions. Here’s our key take outs from the session.

2. Integrity – Is the puzzle almost solved? To wait for perfection will mean waiting forever.

We cannot let the perfect get in the way of the good. Initiatives like the ICVCM (supply side) and VCMI (demand side), as well as the greater involvement of regulators are all building confidence in the integrity of both reductions and removals credits and the broader voluntary carbon markets. Continuous improvement is important but the levels of integrity we now have are good enough to support action.

4. Education and building confidence are among the key barriers to investment.

While many corporations are keen to integrate forest protection and restoration into their sustainability strategies, a lack of confidence and knowledge to make informed decisions on the right investments were raised as key barriers by many in the room. Potential solutions raised, included education tools to help businesses understand the process and support in making the business case internally, particularly for SMEs. The idea of a Coalition, specifically aimed at SMEs was also raised.

5. Advance Market Coalitions provide safe spaces.

Other challenges raised included, lack of clarity on forward pricing, fears of greenwashing allegations, lack of transparency and cost of monitoring outcomes. Speakers agreed that investing to support nature is complex and nuanced and that we should not let the perceived risks of action, prevent action. Both LEAF and Symbiosis were specifically created to provide ‘safe spaces’ for corporations to come together to take collective action, to learn together and unlock the finance needed to support forest protection and restoration, building strong pipelines of high integrity reductions and removals credits.