Nature-based carbon credits come from projects that change the way forests, farms, soils, peatlands, mangroves and other ecosystems are managed so that greenhouse gases are either removed from the atmosphere or prevented from being released. One issued credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, or tCO2e.
Nature-based carbon credits stand in contrast to non-nature solutions. These include alternative forms of carbon sequestration—such as engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and hybrid/waste biomass removal, as well as energy & community technology credits, which focus on displacing fossil fuel dependency through cleaner technology infrastructure.
For corporate buyers considering nature-based credits, this article shares what our 25 years of industry experience has taught us about what makes a project truly successful. When evaluating these credits, there are three critical questions your business must ask:
- Removal vs. Avoidance: Does the credit represent a true carbon removal—where new carbon is actively captured and stored in trees or soil—or an avoided emission achieved by protecting existing ecosystems?
- Ex-Post vs. Ex-Ante: Has the environmental outcome already been monitored and verified (ex-post), or are you providing early-stage financing for carbon reductions that will be delivered in the future (ex-ante)?
- Permanence Risks: How exposed is the project’s stored carbon to reversals from wildfires, shifting land-use policies, or a landowner deciding the land is more financially valuable for agriculture?
Those questions quickly lead beyond carbon accounting. On community land, the durability of a project often depends on whether the people managing it have clear rights, whether they receive a worthwhile share of the value and whether the project still makes economic sense after the first few years. I would not treat those things as decorative co-benefits. If the carbon depends on people continuing to manage land differently, they are part of the delivery risk.
This is also where nature-based projects can be unusually valuable. Carbon finance can restore degraded land, protect an existing forest, support farmers and create biodiversity or water benefits at the same time. I have always thought that was one of the strengths of doing climate work through real landscapes rather than treating a tonne as a commodity detached from where it came from. But the wider story only helps if the carbon case underneath it is sound.
What are nature-based carbon credits?
Nature-based carbon credits are issued from projects where changes to land or ecosystem management create a measurable greenhouse-gas benefit. The carbon outcome can be a removal, an avoided emission or, in some projects, a mixture of both.
A reforestation project, for example, removes CO2 as new trees grow and carbon stocks increase. A forest-conservation project works differently: the carbon is already stored in the landscape, and the credit depends on showing that some of it would have been released without the intervention. A peatland project may reduce emissions from degraded peat. A mangrove project can protect existing carbon while restoring areas that go on accumulating more.
I would keep those mechanisms visible from the beginning because two credits described as “nature-based” can be doing quite different climate work.
Nature-based carbon removal credits
Nature-based removal credits come from projects that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it in biological systems such as trees, soils or wetlands.
Reforestation and agroforestry are the clearest examples. The carbon stock rises as vegetation grows, and the project quantifies that change under a defined methodology.
What makes these projects attractive is also what makes them more complicated than an engineered storage system. The carbon is held in a living landscape. A forest can burn, be cleared, suffer drought or disease, or gradually lose the support of the people managing it. Good standards deal with that through monitoring, buffers, replacement rules and long project periods, but I still want to understand the practical conditions underneath those safeguards.
If the carbon is being stored on thousands of small farms, for instance, the project needs more than a risk buffer in a methodology. It needs a system that farmers will still want to participate in years from now.
Our guide to carbon removal vs avoided emissions explains the physical distinction in more detail.
Nature-based avoided-emissions credits
Avoided-emissions projects protect carbon that would otherwise be at risk of release.
Forest conservation is the obvious case. The standing forest may contain a very large carbon stock, but the credited climate benefit depends on the project being able to show a credible threat of deforestation or degradation and a credible case that its intervention changes that outcome.
When I look at this kind of project, the baseline becomes central. I want to know what has actually been driving forest loss in the area, how the project estimates future loss, whether that pressure is still present and whether protecting one area simply displaces the damaging activity elsewhere.
That is a harder judgement than looking at a photograph of a healthy forest. A project can protect an extraordinary landscape and still have a weak carbon baseline. Conversely, a well-evidenced conservation project can prevent a release of carbon that would be extremely difficult to recover once the ecosystem has been lost.
How nature-based carbon credits are created
A nature-based credit is the end of a chain of work that begins long before a unit appears in a registry.
The details differ between standards and methodologies, but a buyer will normally see some version of this sequence:
Project design → baseline and methodology → validation → implementation → monitoring → independent verification → credit issuance → sale → retirement.
The sequence matters because each stage tells you something different about the status of the carbon.
Carbon baselines and additionality in nature-based projects
The baseline describes what is expected to happen without the project. Additionality asks whether the intervention, and the carbon finance behind it, genuinely changes that outcome.
For a reforestation project, the baseline may establish existing land use and carbon stocks before planting. For avoided deforestation, it may estimate the forest loss expected without the project.
These assumptions deserve proper scrutiny because they can materially change how many credits a project generates. I would not stop at the fact that a project has been certified. I want to see what the methodology assumes, whether the assumptions are conservative and whether later monitoring still supports the case that was made at the start.
That is especially important in avoided-emissions projects, where part of the carbon result depends on something that did not happen.
Monitoring, verification and nature-based carbon-credit issuance
Once the project is operating, the carbon outcome has to be measured.
In forestry that can involve field plots, tree measurements, satellite data, land-use monitoring and models that convert biomass into carbon. On a smallholder project, the practical challenge is not simply estimating a total across a landscape. The system needs to know what is happening on individual farms and parcels well enough to spot underperformance and correct it.
CommuniTree in Nicaragua is a good example of the scale of that job. Plan Vivo currently records more than 5 million PVCs issued to the project and 4,954 participating smallholder families. The monitoring system combines field information with mobile, satellite and machine-learning data. C Level has worked with the project since its early years, and when we visited in 2023 the carbon number was only one part of what was visible: seed collection, nurseries, farm design, planting, young trees and established forest all sat at different points in the same delivery process.
That is why I prefer buyer documents to distinguish clearly between forecast, reported, verified and issued carbon. They are stages in one project, but they are not the same asset.
Nature-based carbon-credit retirement and business claims
Once a credit has been issued, it can be transferred. When a company uses it for a claim, the unit is normally retired in the registry so it cannot be sold and used again.
For a corporate buyer, the file should therefore contain more than a certificate. I would expect to be able to trace the project, methodology, vintage, registry, serial numbers and retirement record. If somebody new joins the sustainability team two years later, they should be able to reconstruct what the company bought without relying on an old email from the supplier.
The intended claim should also be known before the units are selected. A credit can be perfectly credible and still be unsuitable for a VCMI Claim, an SBTi-related use or a statement about verified removal. The wording a company hopes to publish is part of the procurement specification, not something to invent afterwards.
Types of nature-based carbon credits
Nature-based carbon is often treated as though it means forest carbon. In practice, the market includes several different ecosystems and methodologies.
| Nature-based carbon project | Typical carbon outcome | What I would examine closely |
|---|---|---|
| Reforestation / agroforestry | Removal | Survival, growth, land tenure, reversal risk, long-term farmer incentives |
| Forest conservation / REDD+ | Avoided emissions | Baseline, additionality, leakage, land rights |
| Mangrove / blue carbon | Removal and/or avoided emissions | Soil-carbon accounting, coastal change, community rights, permanence |
| Peatland restoration | Mainly avoided emissions, sometimes removals depending on methodology | Hydrology, baseline drainage emissions, long-term management |
| Soil carbon / regenerative agriculture | Removal and emissions reduction | Measurement uncertainty, sampling, practice durability, farmer participation |
| Grassland / savanna management | Avoided emissions and/or soil carbon gains | Grazing baseline, fire regime, leakage, land rights |
| Improved forest management | Removal and/or reductions | Baseline harvest assumptions, management changes, leakage |
I would choose between these by starting with the buyer’s purpose rather than the ecosystem. A company funding restoration has a different reason for buying from one that needs an issued removal today or one that wants to protect an existing high-carbon landscape.
Reforestation and agroforestry carbon credits
Reforestation restores tree cover to degraded or previously forested land. Agroforestry integrates trees into productive farmland.
The carbon mechanism is relatively easy to picture, but the project itself is not simply tree planting. On CommuniTree, smallholder farmers enrol land, establish tree systems and receive support while those systems develop. Seed collection, nursery work, farm planning, planting, survival checks and monitoring all come before a mature forest ever appears in a photograph.
That sequence has affected how I think about forestry credits. The permanence of the carbon is partly technical, but it is also tied to whether the farming system works. If the farmer gains shade, timber, fruit, soil improvement or a continuing income stream from the trees, the project has a stronger economic foundation than one asking people to preserve carbon at their own expense.
Forest conservation and REDD+ carbon credits
Forest-conservation projects generate credits by preventing deforestation or degradation that would otherwise occur.
They can protect very large carbon stocks and important biodiversity, but the baseline has to do much more work than it does in a straightforward planting project. If the estimated threat of forest loss is exaggerated, too many credits can be issued even if the project itself is well run.
I would therefore expect a buyer looking at REDD+ or another forest-protection methodology to spend time on the evidence behind the baseline and leakage assumptions. Criticism of weak projects is not a reason to dismiss forest conservation altogether. It is a reason to distinguish a strong project from a weak one.
There is also a scale question that has become more important in tropical forest carbon. WRI’s guidance says buyers should source jurisdictional-scale REDD+ credits when they are available. The logic is that a project baseline makes more sense when it is reconciled with what is happening across the wider jurisdiction. For a project-scale buyer, I would not turn that into a blanket rule that every standalone project is unacceptable. I would ask whether the project sits inside, or is moving towards, the relevant jurisdictional accounting system and whether its baseline takes the wider forest picture seriously. That is a much more useful diligence question than simply asking whether the project carries the REDD+ label.
Blue carbon credits from mangroves and wetlands
Blue carbon projects work with coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass.
Mikoko Pamoja in Kenya is the best-known example. Plan Vivo describes it as the world’s first community-led blue-carbon project. It combines avoided deforestation with afforestation and reforestation and currently involves 1,081 households.
The project makes the appeal of blue carbon easy to understand. Mangroves store carbon in vegetation and waterlogged soils while supporting fisheries and helping protect the coast. Carbon revenue has also supported community priorities including schools and clean water.
For a buyer, however, I would still separate those benefits from the carbon accounting. Mikoko Pamoja is useful precisely because protection and restoration occur in the same project. The project story is one story; the carbon mechanisms inside it are not all the same.
Peatland carbon credits
Peatlands store large amounts of carbon in waterlogged soils. Drainage exposes that carbon to decomposition and can create long-running greenhouse-gas emissions.
Restoration generally focuses on rewetting and changing land management so those emissions are reduced. In the UK, the Peatland Code is one of the principal frameworks for quantifying and verifying that work.
A buyer should check what the unit actually represents under the relevant methodology. Some peatland projects are mainly reducing ongoing emissions from degradation rather than removing large quantities of new CO2 from the atmosphere. The word “peatland” does not settle that question.
Soil carbon and regenerative agriculture credits
Soil-carbon projects reward changes in farming practice intended to increase soil organic carbon or reduce emissions.
There is a strong practical case for the work itself. Better soil can improve water retention, resilience and agricultural productivity. The harder question is how confidently a project can measure the carbon change across variable soils and over time.
Sampling design, modelling assumptions and the continuation of farming practices all matter. If I were comparing soil-carbon credits, I would want to know how much of the result comes from direct measurement, how much comes from modelling and what happens to the credited carbon if the farming practice changes later.
Are nature-based carbon credits high integrity?
Some are excellent. Others are not good enough for a serious corporate buyer.
The word nature-based tells you the setting of the project. It does not establish additionality, quantification, permanence, verification or protection against double counting. Those still have to be shown.
ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles are useful because they force attention onto those underlying tests across different carbon-credit categories. With land-based projects, though, I would add a practical layer that does not always show up neatly in a headline integrity checklist: who controls the land, who benefits from the project and whether the arrangement is likely to survive the pressures that created the emissions problem in the first place.
Permanence and reversal risk in nature-based projects
Biological carbon can be lost again. Fire, drought, disease, harvesting and land-use change all create reversal risk.
Standards manage this through devices such as risk buffers, replacement rules, monitoring and long crediting or permanence periods. Those protections matter, but I would still want to understand the local economics behind them.
If land becomes much more valuable for cattle, crops or development, what keeps it under the project? If a farmer is being asked to maintain trees for decades, what are they receiving in return? If a local organisation disappears, who continues the monitoring and support?
A buffer pool can absorb some carbon loss. It cannot by itself create a durable relationship between a project and the people whose choices determine what happens on the land.
Additionality, baselines and leakage in nature-based carbon
Land has competing uses, which is why additionality and leakage deserve particular attention in nature-based projects.
Additionality asks whether the climate outcome would have happened without carbon finance. The baseline estimates the alternative future. Leakage looks at whether the damaging activity has simply moved elsewhere.
I give more weight to the methodology, monitoring report and verification statement than to a polished project summary because those documents show how the project has actually dealt with these questions. The photographs may explain why the landscape is worth caring about. They cannot tell you whether the baseline was conservative.
Land tenure, community governance and carbon benefit sharing
On community projects, land rights and benefit sharing are not something I would leave to a final ESG paragraph.
If the project depends on farmers or local communities managing land differently, their rights and incentives affect whether the carbon outcome lasts. Plan Vivo makes this unusually explicit: its current buyer guidance says at least 60% of the revenue from the sale of each Plan Vivo Certificate goes directly to the local community. View Plan Vivo’s guidance.
That rule does not make every Plan Vivo project automatically good, but I value the fact that the financial relationship is visible and testable. If most of the value in a land-based project is being extracted elsewhere, I would want to know why the people carrying the long-term delivery risk are expected to remain committed.
Biodiversity claims and nature co-benefits
A nature-based carbon project can also support biodiversity, water, livelihoods and resilience. Those outcomes can be material reasons to choose one project over another, especially where a company wants its climate finance to do more than move a carbon number.
I would still ask how those claims are evidenced. A carbon methodology verifies carbon. It does not automatically prove that biodiversity has improved or that every community outcome described in the sales material has been independently assessed.
Where biodiversity is central to the buying decision, I would look for project monitoring or a recognised nature framework alongside the carbon evidence.
Ex-ante vs verified nature-based carbon credits
Nature restoration creates a financing problem that is easy to miss if you only look at issued credits: much of the money is needed before the carbon has been delivered.
Trees have to be propagated and planted. Farmers need technical support. Land has to be prepared and monitored. A project that waits until every tonne is verified before receiving meaningful income may never get through those early years.
That is why I do not regard ex-ante finance as a second-rate form of carbon finance. CommuniTree’s 2025 annual report makes the same point: restoration needs meaningful upfront investment and sustained stewardship before a forest reaches full carbon delivery. For a project developer, that timing can be decisive.
For the buyer, however, a future tonne and an issued tonne are different assets. If a company needs a verified unit for a current claim, a forecast tonne cannot do that job simply because the project is credible. If the company wants to help finance new restoration, accepting delivery risk may be entirely reasonable.
The useful distinction is therefore between what the money is financing now and what carbon outcome the buyer can evidence now. Keeping those two things separate avoids both extremes: dismissing early-stage finance as somehow inferior, or describing a future removal as though it had already happened.
Nature-based carbon credits vs engineered carbon removals
Nature-based credits and engineered removals solve overlapping but not identical problems.
| Nature-based carbon | Engineered carbon removal |
|---|---|
| Can include removal or avoided emissions | Primarily removal |
| Usually biological storage | Often mineral, geological or product storage |
| Can create substantial biodiversity and community benefits | Usually fewer ecosystem co-benefits |
| Biological reversal risk can be material | Some pathways offer much longer storage durability |
| Often lower cost per tonne | Often considerably more expensive |
| Delivery depends heavily on land, ecology and people | Delivery depends more heavily on technology, energy and infrastructure |
I would not force a company to choose one category for all purposes.
A business may have good reasons to fund forest restoration or protection today because it values the combined climate, nature and community outcome, while gradually building exposure to more durable removals for future neutralisation of long-lived residual emissions. The important thing is to know why each tonne is in the portfolio.
Which standards cover nature-based carbon credits?
A buyer will come across several names that are often described loosely as carbon standards, but they do not all do the same job.
| Standard or framework | Where it is most relevant | What I would remember as a buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Plan Vivo PV Climate | Community-led land and nature projects internationally | Strong community design and revenue-sharing requirements; check the project methodology and unit status as well as programme approval |
| Verra VCS | Large international voluntary carbon market across many project types | Very broad coverage; project and methodology diligence remain essential |
| Gold Standard | International mitigation projects with sustainable-development requirements | Carbon integrity and wider sustainable-development outcomes are both part of the framework |
| Woodland Carbon Code | UK woodland creation | UK registry-based system; most units currently traded are Pending Issuance Units rather than verified Woodland Carbon Units |
| Peatland Code | UK peatland restoration | UK framework for quantified emissions benefits from peatland restoration; most traded units are also pending rather than ex-post |
| BSI Flex 703 v1.0 | UK nature-based carbon market quality | A specification for high-quality UK nature-based carbon benefits, not a registry that issues credits |
The final row is worth separating from the others. BSI Flex 703 now sets requirements for UK nature-based carbon removals and greenhouse-gas reductions, but it is not another marketplace or crediting registry. It is part of the UK’s emerging Nature Investment Standards architecture and is intended to raise consistency across programmes and projects.
I would use the programme name to understand the rulebook, then come back to the project and unit. A recognised standard is useful evidence. It is not a substitute for knowing what the particular tonne represents.
Nature-based carbon credits vs biodiversity credits
A nature-based carbon credit and a biodiversity credit may come from the same landscape, but they are not measuring the same thing.
Carbon credits quantify a greenhouse-gas outcome in tCO2e. Biodiversity credits and wider nature credits use different methodologies to measure ecological change.
That distinction becomes more important as the UK nature market develops. BSI’s Nature Investment Standards Programme now includes separate standards for biodiversity benefits and for nature-based carbon benefits, including BSI Flex 703 v1.0 for UK nature-based carbon removals and greenhouse-gas reductions.
If a company wants a verified biodiversity outcome, I would buy against a biodiversity methodology. I would not assume a forest carbon credit proves it simply because the project happens to be biodiverse.
What do nature-based carbon credits cost?
There is no useful single price for nature-based carbon credits because the category contains too many different assets.
The latest UK data makes that very clear. For 2025, the average reported price of a Woodland Carbon Code Pending Issuance Unit was £28.32 per tCO2e, while the average reported price of a Peatland Code Pending Issuance Unit was £39.57. More than 99% of the Woodland Carbon Code units in the dataset were pending units rather than verified Woodland Carbon Units, and the Peatland Code sample was small enough that several large transactions materially influenced the average. View the statistics.
Those qualifications are part of the price, not footnotes to it. A £28 pending woodland unit is a promise of future verified carbon under a UK scheme. It is not the same asset as an already issued international forest removal or a REDD+ unit available for immediate retirement.
The wider market tells a similar story. The World Bank’s 2026 review found that credit prices fell slightly overall in 2025, while highly rated forest-conservation and reforestation projects continued to earn premiums. Buyers are not simply paying for the word “forest”; they are increasingly paying for evidence and perceived quality. View the report.
I would still resist using price as the first filter. If one supplier offers £8, another £28 and another £55, I first want to know whether the units are avoidance or removal, issued or future, which vintages they represent and whether all three are suitable for the same corporate use. Until those questions are answered, the numbers are not competing prices for the same product.
Our carbon-credit price guide covers the wider market in more detail.
Should a business buy one nature-based carbon project or a portfolio?
Diversification can reduce concentration risk, but I would not make it an automatic rule.
If a company is buying a very large volume, spreading exposure across more than one geography, methodology or project can make sense. Fire, policy change, delivery delays and project-specific problems do not all move together, and a portfolio can reduce the effect of one failure.
For a smaller corporate programme, however, I often prefer depth to artificial diversification. Splitting a modest budget across ten projects can leave the buyer with ten shallow relationships, ten sets of evidence and very little understanding of any of them. One or two projects that the company can follow properly may create a much stronger programme, particularly where employees, customers or the board are expected to understand what the funding is doing.
The decision I would make is therefore not “portfolio good, single project bad”. I would ask how much concentration risk the buyer is actually carrying and whether diversification improves the programme enough to justify losing some depth of relationship and diligence.
How businesses should choose nature-based carbon credits
I would begin with the intended use of the money and work outwards from there.
A company funding early restoration should not use the same procurement test as one buying issued tonnes for a current claim. A company that wants to protect an existing ecosystem is making a different choice from one building a future removal portfolio. Once the purpose is clear, the project shortlist becomes much easier to interrogate.
Decide which nature-based carbon outcome the business needs
Ask what the company actually wants to finance.
If the objective is carbon removal, look for a methodology that measures increased carbon stocks. If the objective is protecting an existing high-carbon ecosystem, an avoided-emissions project may be entirely appropriate. If the company wants to catalyse work before issuance, make sure everyone understands that the purchase carries future delivery risk.
The wrong starting point is “Which project do we like?” A strong project can still be the wrong asset for a particular corporate use.
Check the nature-based carbon project documents, not just the standard
A recognised standard tells you the project is operating inside a defined system. It does not remove the need to look at the project itself.
I would expect to see the project design or technical documentation, the methodology, the latest monitoring or annual report, verification evidence and registry position. Those are the documents that show what has actually been claimed, measured and checked.
Plan Vivo’s PV Climate programme became CCP-Eligible at programme level in August 2026, subject to ICVCM’s conditions. That is an important milestone, but it is also a useful example of why labels need unpacking: individual methodologies still have to pass the relevant category assessment before eligible units can carry the CCP label. View the ICVCM decision.
Check the nature-based carbon-credit unit status, vintage and registry record
The proposal should tell you whether the units are forecast, reported, verified, issued, available for retirement or already retired.
It should also identify the vintage and registry.
I would want those details early because they affect price, claims and delivery risk. Two offers from the same project can still be materially different if one is an issued vintage and the other is future delivery.
Check who controls the land and receives the carbon revenue
For land-based projects, I regard this as a core procurement question.
Who owns or controls the land? Who owns the carbon rights? Who agreed to the project? How is income shared? What happens if a more profitable land use appears? What grievance process exists if the arrangement stops working for local participants?
Those questions tell you something that a carbon calculation cannot: whether the project has a realistic social and economic foundation for lasting as long as the carbon claim requires.
Match the nature-based carbon credit to the corporate claim
Before signing, write down what the company intends to say.
If the claim is about verified removal, the unit needs to be a verified removal. If the project is avoiding deforestation, do not rebrand the outcome as removal because the communications team prefers the word. If the company is funding future forest creation, keep the wording future-facing until the carbon has been delivered.
Where VCMI, SBTi or another framework is involved, check the current eligibility rules before choosing the units. Claims are not the final packaging around procurement; they are one of the things procurement has to solve.
Where can businesses buy nature-based carbon credits?
There are four common buying routes, and I would choose between them according to the size and purpose of the purchase.
Direct from a project developer can give a buyer the closest relationship with the project and good visibility over where the money goes. It also means the buyer may have to do more of the technical and contractual diligence itself.
Through a specialist provider or adviser can make more sense where the company wants somebody to shortlist projects, check the evidence, arrange retirement and help align the purchase with a corporate framework or claim. This is the route C Level mainly occupies.
Through a marketplace can work well for a smaller spot purchase or for a team that already knows what it wants and values breadth and transparent listings. The buyer still needs to understand what diligence the marketplace has and has not done.
Through a forward offtake or early-stage funding agreement is a different proposition again. It can provide the capital that allows a restoration project to happen, but the buyer is taking delivery risk and needs contractual protection if the expected carbon is delayed or under-delivered.
I would not treat those as four ways of buying the same thing. The route changes how close the buyer is to the project, who is doing the diligence, when the carbon is delivered and what evidence will exist at the point the company wants to make a claim.
Nature-based carbon credits under SBTi, VCMI and ICVCM
SBTi, VCMI and ICVCM all touch nature-based carbon, but they are asking different questions.
SBTi deals with the company’s emissions-reduction pathway and how external climate finance sits alongside it.
VCMI looks at how a company uses carbon credits and whether it has met the conditions for a recognised Carbon Integrity Claim.
ICVCM assesses carbon-crediting programmes and credit categories against the Core Carbon Principles.
A buyer therefore needs to keep the project, the unit and the corporate use separate. A Plan Vivo project may be credible and community-led without every unit already carrying the CCP label. A high-quality carbon credit does not reduce a company’s Scope 1, 2 or 3 inventory. Retiring a good unit does not on its own qualify a company for a VCMI Claim.
Those are different decisions, even when the same credit sits in the middle of all three.
For some international purchases there is a fourth layer: Article 6 and corresponding adjustments. Whether that matters depends on the intended use and claim. I would not pay a premium for a corresponding adjustment simply because it sounds more official; I would first establish whether the buyer’s framework or claim actually requires one and what accounting consequence it is meant to achieve.
C Level nature-based carbon projects: two different buyer examples
The range of nature-based carbon becomes clearer when you compare two projects certified under the same Plan Vivo programme.
| Project | Nature intervention | Carbon outcome | What I would notice as a buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| CommuniTree, Nicaragua | Reforestation and agroforestry with smallholder farmers | Primarily removal | Farmer land ownership, parcel-level monitoring, long project history, future-finance model |
| Khasi Hills, India | Forest protection and assisted natural regeneration | Avoided emissions and regeneration | Community governance, REDD+ baseline, regeneration of degraded forest, biodiversity hotspot |
CommuniTree reforestation carbon removals
CommuniTree began in 2010 and Plan Vivo currently records more than 5 million PVCs issued and 4,954 participating smallholder families.
What I find useful about the project is that permanence stops being an abstract carbon-market term once you look at thousands of individually managed farms. The trees have to survive on land that still has to work for the farmer. Monitoring has to identify where planting is succeeding and where help is needed. The income model has to remain worthwhile enough for the farmer to stay engaged.
That is why our view of project quality has become inseparable from the way the project works on the ground. The carbon calculation matters, but so does the system that keeps producing the result.
Read about the CommuniTree project
Khasi Hills forest protection and regeneration
Khasi Hills in Meghalaya, India combines avoided deforestation with assisted natural regeneration across 27,000 hectares of cloud forest and involves 86 community groups under Plan Vivo.
Part of the carbon case comes from keeping existing forest standing. Part comes from degraded areas recovering. The same landscape also protects sacred groves, watersheds and exceptional biodiversity.
For me, the project is a useful antidote to the idea that “nature-based” identifies a single kind of carbon credit. Even within one landscape, the buyer may be financing more than one carbon mechanism, and the project documents need to show how each is quantified.
Read about the Khasi Hills project
When nature-based carbon credits are the wrong choice
Nature-based carbon is not the right answer for every buyer or every use.
If a company needs extremely long-duration storage to neutralise long-lived residual emissions at net zero, more durable engineered removal may be a better fit. If it needs an issued tonne for a current claim, an early-stage restoration project selling future units cannot substitute for that simply because the project is attractive. If the main objective is a measured biodiversity outcome, a biodiversity or nature-credit methodology may be more appropriate.
I would also draw a harder line where a company is using external credits to avoid an emissions reduction it can reasonably make inside its own operations or value chain. A better project does not fix a weak corporate strategy.
The point of nature-based carbon is to finance a climate outcome in a real landscape. It works best when the company is clear about why it is doing that and when the project evidence genuinely supports the use.
Nature-based carbon credits FAQ
Some are.
Reforestation, agroforestry and other restoration projects can generate removals as carbon stocks increase. Forest protection and some peatland projects may generate avoided-emissions or emissions-reduction credits. Some projects contain both.
Nature-based storage is generally more exposed to reversal than geological or mineral storage.
Good projects manage the risk through monitoring, buffers, replacement rules and long-term governance. Buyers should still look at the specific land, ecosystem and project structure rather than assume that a formal permanence mechanism settles every practical risk.
Not as a general rule.
Nature-based projects can create substantial biodiversity, livelihood and landscape benefits and are often less expensive. Engineered removals can offer much longer storage durability. A company may reasonably use both for different purposes.
External carbon credits do not normally reduce a company’s Scope 1, 2 or 3 inventory or count as progress towards SBTi emissions-reduction targets.
SBTi provides separate routes for external climate finance and for eventual neutralisation of residual emissions.
Yes.
Forward or ex-ante finance can provide the early capital needed to establish a restoration project before the final carbon outcome has been delivered. The buyer should keep the claim consistent with the delivery state and avoid describing forecast carbon as though it were already verified.
International carbon-crediting programmes include Plan Vivo, Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard and Gold Standard, among others.
In the UK, the Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code are important domestic frameworks. BSI Flex 703 v1.0 also provides a standard for the supply of nature-based carbon benefits in UK nature markets.
A buyer should assess the specific methodology and unit as well as the programme name.
No.
Nature-based carbon credits quantify greenhouse-gas reductions or removals in tCO2e. Biodiversity credits quantify a different nature outcome under a different methodology. One project may create both kinds of value, but the units are not interchangeable.
Nature-based carbon credits from C Level
C Level has worked with community-led nature projects since 2000, and we prefer to work with a relatively small number of projects we can understand in depth rather than treat credits as interchangeable inventory.
For a business buyer, that means we can discuss the carbon methodology and unit status alongside the practical project questions: who is doing the work, how the land is managed, what monitoring exists and where the money goes.
If you are considering nature-based carbon, tell us what you need the purchase to achieve. We can then show you the projects and units that fit that purpose, together with the evidence behind them.
- Explore C Level carbon projects
- Read how we choose high-integrity carbon credits
- Read our carbon-credit price guide
- Read our Plan Vivo carbon credits guide
Sources and methodology
This article was checked against current project, standards and market sources on 23 September 2026.
- World Resources Institute, Guidance on Voluntary Use of Nature-based Solution Carbon Credits Through 2040. Source for the advice to buy jurisdictional-scale REDD+ credits where they are available. View the guidance.
- World Resources Institute, Nature and Carbon Markets. Background on nature-based carbon markets. View the programme.
- World Bank, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2026. Source for the slight fall in credit prices in 2025 and the premium for highly rated forest conservation and reforestation projects. View the report.
- Woodland Carbon Code, UK carbon prices. Source for the 2025 average prices of Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code Pending Issuance Units, and the share of pending units. View the statistics.
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme, UK Carbon Price Index. Background on Peatland Code prices. View the index.
- BSI Nature Investment Standards Programme. Source for the separate UK standards for biodiversity and nature-based carbon benefits. View the programme.
- BSI Flex 703 v1.0, Supply of nature-based carbon benefits. Source for what the specification covers. View the specification.
- ICVCM, CCP-Eligible programme decisions for BioCarbon Standard, Cercarbono and Plan Vivo PV Climate, 4 August 2026. Source for Plan Vivo PV Climate’s programme-level decision and its conditions. View the decision.
- ICVCM, Assessment Status. Source for which methodologies have passed the category assessment. View the status list.
- Plan Vivo, Buy Credits. Source for the rule that at least 60% of the revenue from each certificate goes directly to the local community. View the guidance.
- Plan Vivo, CommuniTree Nicaragua. Source for the start date, certificates issued, participating families and monitoring platform. View the project record.
- Plan Vivo, Mikoko Pamoja Kenya. Source for the project’s activities, households and community benefits. View the project record.
- Plan Vivo, Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Project India. Source for the area, activities and community groups. View the project record.
- CommuniTree Carbon Program, 2025 Annual Report. Source for the point that restoration needs upfront investment before a forest reaches full carbon delivery. View the report.