RA accredited for VCS

The organisation has received accreditation from the American National Standards Institute to ISO 14065:2007, the international standard for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies and a necessary requirement for approval to VCS.

Leading scheme for voluntary climate mitigation 

“The VCS is emerging as the leading standard for voluntary verification of climate mitigation projects,” said Jeff Hayward, climate initiative manager for the Rainforest Alliance. "Being the first FSC-certifier with formal accreditation to the VCS enables the Rainforest Alliance to offer a wider range of responsible forestry and climate verification to ground-breaking carbon projects globally.”  Based on our strong partnership with the Rainforest Alliance, NEPCon is now also able to offer VCS project verification.

The Rainforest Alliance has already validated one reforestation carbon offset project to the VCS standard. Carbonfund.org’s Tensas National Wildlife Refuge Reforestation Project in Louisiana , US, recently achieved dual validation by the Rainforest Alliance to the VCS standard as well as the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards with Gold Distinction. 
Over 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be sequestered from the atmosphere throughout the lifetime of the project.

Focus on forestry and carbon sequestration

The accreditation to VCS is a natural next step for the Rainforest Alliance, which has focused seriously on carbon forestry projects for several years.

The  organisation has validated and verified forest carbon projects in Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, England, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Indonesia, and is currently working with projects in over 20 countries. 

For the past two years, the Rainforest Alliance has provided carbon auditing services to FSC-certified, Rainforest Alliance Certified and non-certified landowners against the standards of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCB standards), Plan Vivo and the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). 

In collaboration with the Rainforest Alliance, NEPCon is now offering  project validation and verification against the VCS, CCB, and CCX standards. In addition, NEPCon will soon be offering verification of Green House Gas footprinting at corporate level.

Source: the Rainforest Alliance