Business Rooted in Nature

C Level meets client needs for verified Carbon Projects and is also at the forefront of the emerging market for verified Biodiversity Certificates & Projects.  All under Plan Vivo.

For clients that want to deepen their relationship with regenerative projects, we offer access to Special Projects, Regeneration Hubs.  These are are smaller scale and strongly intertwine ecological and cultural regeneration.

CARBON PROJECTS

• verification – plan vivo climate
• action – ecosystem carbon drawdown and carbon removal
• funding – carbon certificates

BIODIVERSITY PROJECTS

• verification – plan vivo nature
• action – revaluing bringing back nature
• funding – biodiversity certificates

REGENERATION HUBS*

• verification – direct digital funding & monitoring (ddFM)
• action – ecocultural regeneration & land guardians
• funding – regeneration cells within the hubs
• They are stronger on cultural regeneration and are simpler to fund and monitor.

*Each Regen Hub is made up of a mosaic of Regeneration Cells that can be assigned to clients and tracked digitally over time. Clients choose the Cells to fund and these are uniquely assigned enabling progress to be seen over time on our DDFM platforms.  These projects offer a simple direct link to the land and its guardians. Children’s Forest in the UK and the Kogi Munekan Masha Project in Columbia are examples.   

What we mean by regenerative projects: nature projects that combine both ecological and cultural regeneration; nature projects that enable a business to remove carbon, restore nature and rebuild community.

Rather than just forming a transactional relationship with clients, we view the relationship as regenerative which means we are working together to bring about changes in systems and values just as much as meeting business needs for net-zero carbon.  Our projects deliver the high integrity verified carbon removals needed by businesses.  But they do much more and are built with unique foundational values and a systemic perspective:

• Looking at holistic impact, livelihood, biodiversity and climate are intertwined
• Local and indigenous communities are centre stage as guardians on the ground to make and maintain projects and in some cases to remind us all of important foundational values
• Projects deliver real impact.  They are high performance under the Plan Vivo Standard’s design requirements and their monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements

Regenerative projects actively rebuild living systems to support life into the future. This includes restoring forests, soils, wetlands, peatlands, mangroves and marine habitats while supporting the people who protect them.

Typical regenerative actions include:

• Agroforestry that rebuilds soil fertility
• Native forest restoration and habitat recovery
• Coastal and marine ecosystem protection
• Long-term new livelihoods for local and Indigenous communities

Projects supported by C Level are certified under the Plan Vivo Foundation standard, which requires projects to deliver measurable ecological and social outcomes, not carbon alone.

This makes regenerative projects more valuable, credible and future-proof than simple carbon offset schemes.  For 25 years we have avoided the term carbon offsets and carbon neutral.  Our projects are great for credible ‘compensation’, to balance an organisation’s carbon footprint in the most robust and verified way, but they are also very much aligned with the idea of ‘contribution’ where businesses recognise the fundamental interdependence of business and living systems.

Carbon offsetting has always included two main approaches.

Traditional offsets usually avoid future emissions. Projects intervene in what would have happened to stocks of carbon eg fossil fuels, forests and soils.  We work with the best carbon av
Removals deal with carbon already in the earths atmosphere. Carbon removals physically take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it.  They bring carbon down to earth.  Nature based solutions (which is all we work with) drawdown carbon into living systems, into forests and soils through the process of carbon sequestration.

Most of the nature based projects C Level works with are removing carbon, but under Plan Vivo Climate, we also work with the world’s best nature based avoidance projects like the Hadza Project which is creating carbon benefit by protecting East African forests and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation.  Another way that we look at this through a nature based lens is to think in terms of Restore Projects and Protect Projects.

Examples of nature based solutions involving carbon removals:

• Growing trees and restoring forests
• Soil carbon restoration
• Peatland and wetland recovery
• Mangrove and seagrass restoration

Because the world has already gone through a massive release of stored carbon it is essential that we work with nature to both protect what is left and prioritise the rapid development of regenerative carbon removals -all alongside bringing about massive emission reductions.

Under the Plan Vivo Foundation framework, carbon removals (and avoided carbon) must be:

• Additional (would not happen without funding)
• Long-term (permanence requirements)
• Independently verified
• Community governed

This avoids “paper offsets” and ensures real climate impact while empowering those best placed to bring about change on the ground for the long term – Indigenous and local communities.

Carbon and biodiversity certificates represent verified positive environmental outcomes.

They differ from older carbon credits because they:

1. Prove real-world impact – not just accounting compliance
2. Include ecosystem health and biodiversity
3. Require transparent verification and ownership

Plan Vivo certificates also guarantee a minimum revenue share to communities, meaning the people restoring ecosystems directly benefit.  Plan Vivo creates certificates in a crowded market place of competing standards.  But it is unique for two reasons.  First it is the original carbon standard.  Second, it is the only one to mandate that all project developers must deliver a defined minimum share of funding generated directly into the communities participating in the projects.  Plan Vivo has always set this threshold, ensuring equitable benefit sharing, at 60%.

Plan Vivo Certificates enable clients to demonstrate genuine climate, biodiversity and social ‘contribution’, going way beyond simple neutrality claims.

C Level works primarily with the Plan Vivo Foundation standard because it is designed specifically for community-led nature restoration.  It has the longest track record of any standard.

Key integrity requirements include:

• Independent third-party validation and ongoing monitoring
• Proof of additionality
• Long-term land stewardship agreements
• Mandatory community payment share
• Social and biodiversity safeguards

The standard is currently completing the final stages of assessment against the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets’ Core Carbon Principles.

In all the regenerative projects in our portfolio, we work with indigenous and local communities. This includes:

• Hadza Hunter Gatherers of the Yaeda Valley in Tanzania
• Nomads of the Mongolian Steppes
• Khasi Hill Tribes of Meghalaya
• Kogi of the Sierra Nevada

Many rely heavily on the health of the land and ecosystems for food, materials and even home building.  This historic and contemporary symbiosis between people and nature is based on practical and spiritual values shared by these communities.  Local communities, when empowered on their own lands are best placed to protect and regenerate nature and to bring about the essential climate and biodiversity benefits the earth needs.  This is why practical and cultural community regeneration is a big part of what we mean when we talk about regenerative projects.  We can all listen, all learn with the people whose fingers are still close to the pulse of life.  Those who in some places still see soil, teeming with immense life, as sacred, as essential for a future that’s alive.

Look for:

• Independent certification
• Transparent monitoring data
• Long-term permanence safeguards
• Community participation
• Biodiversity outcomes

The Plan Vivo Foundation standard requires all of these.

Yes. Verified certificates can support sustainability reporting alongside reduction plans.

They are particularly useful for organisations moving beyond neutrality toward climate contribution and nature positive strategies.

Carbon neutrality: balancing emissions with credits
Climate contribution: actively funding restoration beyond your footprint

Regulators and investors increasingly view contribution as the more responsible long-term approach.

Healthy ecosystems regulate climate, water and food systems.
Carbon stability depends on functioning ecosystems.

Government risk assessments increasingly identify ecosystem collapse as a major economic and security threat.
Restoring biodiversity therefore supports both climate stability and human resilience.

Plan Vivo projects integrate biodiversity into project design rather than treating it as an optional co-benefit.

Yes. Individuals as well as organisations can purchase verified certificates to contribute to global restoration or balance personal emissions.  We currently recommend using the purchase certificates option on the Khasi Hills, Mongolian Nomad and CommuniTree Project pages.