REDD+

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) Carbon Crediting

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is the project type with the most credits on the voluntary carbon market—about a quarter of all credits to date. REDD+ projects pay governments, organizations, communities, and individuals in forest landscapes (primarily tropical ones in the Global South) for activities that preserve forests and avoid forest-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Quality Assessment of REDD+ Carbon Credit Projects

Download the Executive Summary Download the Full Report
(pdf; 12 pages) (pdf; 196 pages)

Released September 15, 2023

Report Summary:

This study brings together an interdisciplinary team of political and natural ecologists and ecosystem modelers to comprehensively assess the quality of these credits. We assess their effectiveness at reducing deforestation, generating high-quality carbon credits, and protecting forest communities focusing on five key program elements: baselines, leakage, forest carbon accounting, durability, and safeguards.

As with other major offset project types, we found that current REDD+ methodologies likely generate credits that represent a small fraction of their claimed climate benefit. Estimates of emissions reductions were exaggerated across all quantification factors we reviewed when compared to the published literature and our independent quantitative assessment. Safeguard policies, presented as ensuring “no net harm” to forest communities, in practice have been treated as voluntary guidance.

When considering all evidence together, our overall conclusion is that REDD+ is ill-suited to the generation of carbon credits for use as offsets. We suggest a number of other measures that private actors can take or support that together can help to reduce tropical deforestation.

Suggested citation:

Haya, B. K., Alford-Jones, K., Anderegg, W. R. L., Beymer-Farris, B., Blanchard, L., Bomfim, B., Chin, D., Evans, S., Hogan, M., Holm, J. A., McAfee, K., So, I. S., West, T. A. P., & Withey, L. (2023). Quality assessment of REDD+ carbon credit projects. Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/centers/cepp/projects/berkeley-carbon-trading-project/REDD+

Other resources

Carbon Market Watch has released its own policy brief, Error Log: Exposing the Methodological Failures of REDD+ Forestry Projects, on our report findings along with other related materials.