The Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) Coalition’s goal is to halt deforestation by financing large scale tropical forest protection. In 2021, the Coalition mobilized $1bn in financing, kicking off the largest-ever public-private effort to protect tropical forests.
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LEAF COALITION COMMITMENTS TOP $1.5 BILLION
7 November 2022 | Sharm El Sheikh: The LEAF Coalition today announced it has increased the total amount of financial commitments for the purchase of high-integrity emissions reductions credits to over USD $1.5 billion. This represents a 100% increase in financial commitments from the private sector since COP26. Volkswagen Group and H&M Group have become the latest global corporations to make financial commitments to the LEAF Coalition. The Republic of Korea has been unveiled as the first Asian government to provide financial support to LEAF. The Republic of Korea joins the governments of the UK, US and Norway in backing the Coalition. In addition, Ecuador has become the first forest nation to sign a LEAF memorandum of agreement. This sets out next steps and a clear roadmap for the signing of a binding Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement by April 2023. Read more in the press release.
SIX BRAZILIAN STATES AND FOREST COUNTRIES SIGN LEAF AGREEMENTS
17 November 2022 | Sharm El Sheikh: Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Pará have become the first Brazilian states to sign Letters of Intent (LOI) with Emergent, the coordinator of The LEAF Coalition. These LOIs demonstrate the commitment of all parties to progress negotiations towards binding agreements to supply emissions reductions to LEAF Coalition participants, and signal significant progress for LEAF in Brazil. Read more in the press release.
LEAF also announced that Costa Rica and Nepal have signed memorandums of agreement (MOAs) with Emergent. These agreements, for countries who have already signed LOIs, outline the next steps and put in place a clear roadmap and timetable for the signing of binding Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreements (ERPAs) by the end of April 2023. Costa Rica and Nepal join Ecuador, which was announced earlier at COP27 as the first country to sign a MOA. Read more in the press release.
Emergent invites all corporate climate leaders to participate in the LEAF Coalition. LEAF welcomes participation by any company that meets its high-bar criteria of commitment to science-based emission reductions in their own value chains, backed by mid-century net-zero targets. For companies, LEAF provides an opportunity to accelerate their climate commitments through high-integrity tropical forest protection, while making history by joining the largest public-private effort ever assembled to end tropical deforestation. Please contact leafcompanies@emergentclimate.com to join our coalition of climate leaders.
Tropical forests around the world are under threat. The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland. Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
The LEAF Coalition can help reverse the trend by providing unprecedented financial support to tropical forest governments implementing forest protection, contributing to green and resilient growth through sustainable investments. The LEAF Coalition empowers tropical and subtropical forest countries to move more rapidly towards ending deforestation, while supporting them in achieving their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Reductions in emissions are made across entire countries or large states and provinces (“jurisdictions”) through programs that involve all key stakeholders, including Indigenous peoples and local communities.
It is a priority for the LEAF Coalition that companies make deep cuts in their own value chain emissions. Purchase of credits through LEAF comes in addition to, and not as a substitute for, internal abatement in line with Paris.
To join LEAF, companies must publicly commit to science-based targets (SBTi) or equivalent quantified and independently verified decarbonization targets, consistent with limiting warming in line with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, with no or limited overshoot. Companies must have the targets in place before taking title to LEAF emissions reductions, no later than 2023.
Click on each company’s logo above to view their decarbonization and sustainability commitments. Refer to SBTi’s website to access companies’ SBT language.
Engaging tropical forest countries and states to reduce deforestation on a jurisdictional level and supporting their investments in sustainable development
Ensuring the full and effective participation of local and Indigenous peoples in line with the Cancun Safeguards
Private sector support is in addition to, not instead of, deep cuts in their own value chains in line with science-based emission reduction targets
Using the independent and rigorous ART/TREES standard to ensure uncompromising environmental and social integrity
Payments made by public and private sectors for demonstrated results that increase the speed and scale of forest protection
Catalysing private capital at scale, providing an avenue for companies to go beyond individual efforts to support global action
Robust fund management, monitoring and reporting architecture, informed by guiding Principles that encourage funds be effectively channeled towards systemic change
Click here for the full 2022 proposal template and proposal terms on submissions.
The Coalition opened the first Call for Proposals window in April 2021. View the CFP and template from the first window in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French in our Resources page here.
Click here to get involved if you are a company
Click here to get involved if you are government or NGO
Click here if you are an IPLC representative seeking further information or want to provide feedback
LEAF recognises the critical role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in stewarding and safeguarding the world’s forests, and the weight of evidence that, when their rights are recognised and protected, deforestation falls.
LEAF will not fund jurisdictions that do not respect the rights of IPLCs or do not meet strong social safeguards. LEAF exclusively transacts credits verified by the ART/TREES standard. ART/TREES was selected, in part, because of its rigorous social safeguards, which requires that jurisdictions adhere to the Cancun Safeguards adopted by the UNFCCC. The Cancun Safeguards were the result of sustained engagement with IPLC groups and civil society actors.
Credits will not be issued by ART/TREES – and therefore transactions will not occur – unless safeguards are maintained, consultation has demonstrably occurred, benefit sharing plans are in place and grievance mechanisms are working.
Detailed benefits sharing plans will be developed as jurisdictions implement ART/TREES. Only those jurisdictions able to have effective benefits sharing plans in line with the standard – that benefits be distributed in a fair, transparent, and accountable manner – will be issued credits by ART. And LEAF purchase agreements will be contingent on the development of these mechanisms.
The jurisdictional approach operationalized by ART/TREES is a crucial innovation in tropical forest protection. Attempting to stem deforestation on a site-based, often private sector-led basis, will not be enough. Drivers need to be addressed at the national and state-wide level.
Where carbon ownership rights are vested with IPLC groups, the ART/TREES standard recognizes the rights of these groups to nest REDD+ projects and/or to opt out of jurisdictional programs. ART/TREES requires IPLCs to be full and effective participants in the design, implementation, and periodic assessments of REDD+ actions, including if applicable, through Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). If there is a lack of consent from IPLCs, ART/TREES will not be met.
LEAF purchase agreements will ensure contractually that IPLC rights are respected by including termination clauses if jurisdictions breach the Cancun Safeguards (i.e., if there is evidence of violence, carbon grabbing, etc.) or if jurisdictions are in violation of anticorruption or anti-money laundering laws.
More broadly, the LEAF Coalition is working to ensure that IPLCs and other stakeholders have a mechanism to have their views incorporated into the Coalition. The key stakeholder groups that have been included in the engagement process are IPLCs, tropical and subtropical forest jurisdictions, and civil society organizations– each with distinct relationships to the LEAF Coalition process.
Emergent, the administrative coordinator of the LEAF Coalition, is working with civil society actors who have strong relationships with IPLC groups. With 23 jurisdictions eligible for purchase agreement discussions, engagement is being focused on them.
This is critical work for the LEAF Coalition, and we welcome the opportunity to continue working to support Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
If your organization wants to provide feedback to the LEAF Coalition on issues related to indigenous and local communities, please email us at info@emergentclimate.com.
The LEAF Coalition recognizes the critical role that civil society¹ plays in protecting forests and supporting the communities that steward and depend on them. Additionally, LEAF notes the important advocacy role that civil society plays globally, and the essential role civil society plays in facilitating the successful implementation of jurisdictional REDD+ programs in host countries transacting with LEAF.
Apart from Emergent, which coordinates the Coalition and facilitates its transactions, civil society organizations are not direct participants in the Coalition. Nevertheless, LEAF remains committed to continued engagement with civil society to improve the effectiveness of LEAF’s operations and impact. The LEAF Coalition encourages civil society organizations to engage with LEAF in several important ways:
More specifically, the LEAF Coalition expects a range of civil society partners to be critical in the delivery chain. Emergent utilizes a fund management system that operates through Financial Intermediaries (FIs). CSOs (civil society organizations) may be eligible to act as FIs² for LEAF transactions. In addition to functioning as FIs, civil society may also be considered as implementing entities and/or beneficiaries of LEAF transactions. If your organization is interested in serving as an FI or implementing entity, contact the government agency responsible for the jurisdiction you are interested in supporting.
If your organization is interested in engaging with the LEAF Coalition on issues related to Indigenous and local communities, please email us at info@emergentclimate.com.
Jurisdictions reduce deforestation through national or sub-national scale forest protection programs
Transaction of ART credits from jurisdictions purchased or paid for via intermediary after diligence and internal approvals
ERs will transact at a minimum price of $10 per ER via intermediary, as applicable
Payments to jurisdictions
enable additional forest protection and increased climate ambition
Emission Reductions (ERs)
verified and issued by ART
Funds channelled to
jurisdictions according to fund management best practice
Emergent recognizes the importance of and affirms its commitment to transparency and accountability in all aspects of its operations. Emergent’s Information Disclosure Policy promotes public access and stakeholder participation through the effective dissemination of information. The Policy is based on 3 principles: Principle 1: Maximize access to information; Principle 2: Limited exceptions; Principle 3: Simple and broad access to information.All documents in Emergent’s possession are subject to disclosure as per this Policy, and will be released on the Emergent website or will be provided upon request, unless they fall under an exception. This is to provide the public with a clear picture of Emergent’s work and the way it administers financial resources received from public, private and other sources. It will take some time for Emergent to update the website according to the new Policy, which will be updated by end of Q1 2022.
The LEAF Coalition was launched on April 22nd by an initial group of governments and leading companies aiming to mobilize at least $1 billion in finance to support tropical and subtropical forest jurisdictions in making substantial reductions in their emissions from deforestation. This group of participants is growing, with new companies and governments able to join in the time leading up to the signing of final agreements by the end of 2021.
Emergent, a US non-profit, is providing a platform to facilitate the transactions to provide finance to these programs, and will serve as LEAF’s administrative coordinator.
Performance will be measured against the TREES standard. TREES is a high-integrity standard building on over a decade of progress in international support for reducing deforestation and ensuring social and environmental integrity. TREES is managed by ART, a voluntary global initiative hosted by Winrock International. ART also maintains the registry on which Emissions Reductions are issued, transferred and retired.
ART is governed by an independent Board of Directors, the members of which represent a diverse group of objective, globally recognized experts.
This first Call for Proposals is just the start of what we expect will become a rapidly expanding market for high quality ERs from jurisdictional forest and climate programs. Over the next few years, such a market could channel much greater volumes of finance to tropical and subtropical forest countries that take rapid action to halt emissions from deforestation.
The finance provided under this call for proposals will pay for high-quality Emissions Reductions generated during the 2022 – 2026 period, while allowing supplier countries to still use the underlying mitigation results towards ambitious NDCs (unless they elect to make a corresponding adjustment, which is not required under LEAF).
The LEAF Coalition will thus ensure that ambitious tropical and subtropical forest jurisdictions have access to large scale, predictable performance-based finance, enabling them to further invest in reduced deforestation and sustainable rural development.
ART will issue verified Emissions Reductions (called “TREES credits” under the TREES standard) to participating jurisdictions that reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Each of these represent one tonne of CO2e. The terms of these transactions are designed to accommodate voluntary purposes, such as voluntary corporate commitments to drive urgent climate action in addition to deep cuts in their own emissions in line with science-based emission reduction targets and aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner.1
Companies are invited to participate in the LEAF Coalition by purchasing high-quality emissions reductions as part of broader voluntary commitments to global climate action. These emissions reductions must come in addition to, and not as a substitute for, deep cuts in own value chain emissions. LEAF thus welcomes participation by any company that meets its high-bar criteria of commitment to science-based emission reductions in their own value chains.
Yes. To participate, private sector buyers must meet four key criteria:
– Publicly commit to science-based targets (SBTi) or equivalent quantified and independently verified decarbonization targets, consistent with limiting warming in line with the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement, with no or limited overshoot. In addition, private sector buyers should aim to have set SBTi or equivalent targets (as above) before taking title to ERs, and have the targets in place no later than 2023.2 Private sector buyers must also publicly commit to mid-century net zero targets covering all three emissions scopes.
– Join the UN Race to Zero.
– Publicly report a greenhouse gas emissions inventory following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP).
– Separately report publicly any use of Emissions Reductions or other carbon credits, including purpose of use. Reporting should be independently audited.
This is a global call. All eligible national and subnational jurisdictions (one level down from national level jurisdiction), tropical and subtropical, which meet ART/TREES requirements for forest area are invited to submit proposals.3
The second LEAF submissions window will be open from 13th May – 15th of September 2022. Full submissions templates are available in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French. Jurisdictions are highly encouraged to submit their proposals before July 15th to increase the potential to be considered for signing Letters of Intent in advance of COP27 in November 2022.
Jurisdictions that have not previously submitted a proposal as well as jurisdictions whose applications were not progressed in the first LEAF proposal window, are eligible to apply.
During the first LEAF Coalition submission window in 2021, a total of 35 jurisdictions submitted proposals. A total of 23 successfully completed an initial technical screening process led by an independent panel of technical experts.
Proposals will be selected based on their ability to meet the ART-TREES requirements, and the demonstrated credibility of jurisdictions’ ambition and readiness to reduce deforestation and generate ERs while ensuring the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders — in particular, Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Jurisdictions demonstrating political willingness to make or maintain durable policy changes that enhance ambition under the Paris Agreement would greatly strengthen their proposals. Proposals will be prioritized from jurisdictions with clear and credible pathways towards net zero emissions in line with the latest science, and have established, or have plans to establish as soon as possible, a 2050 Long Term Strategy to implement this global net zero goal.
Following the jurisdictional approach, progress is measured by looking at emissions from the forests of an entire country or state/ province. A reference level is set based on the average of historical emissions, updated every five years. Results are measured relative to this reference level, with deductions set aside for uncertainty and leakage risks as appropriate.4
Payments are made only after results have been fully verified by an accredited and independent body.
Deforestation is reduced using various public regulatory-, finance- and enforcement tools, in conjunction with other public and private initiatives, targeted at the root causes of deforestation, the features of which will depend on country circumstances.
Proposals will be selected based on the demonstrated credibility of jurisdictions’ ambition and readiness to reduce deforestation and generate emission reductions, while also ensuring the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders — in particular, Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Through ART/TREES, Emissions Reductions achieved under the LEAF Coalition must satisfy and go beyond the Cancun safeguards, which require respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples and members of local communities, by taking into account relevant international obligations, national circumstances and laws.5 TREES requires third-party verification of conformance with the safeguards, and includes a series of detailed structural, process, and outcome indicators.
This is a results-based initiative. Payments are only made when emissions reductions have been verified in accordance with the independent ART/TREES standard, which embeds ambitious reference levels, strong requirements for managing uncertainty, leakage risks and permanence, as well as robust environmental and social safeguards.
The LEAF Coalition includes four transaction pathways: There is one pathway for Sovereign contributors to engage in transactions (#1), and three pathways for private sector buyers to do so (#2-4). In #1, Sovereign contributors will not use Emissions Reductions toward their NDCs. Payments support mitigation efforts in the supplier jurisdiction.. The underlying mitigation may be counted once: towards the Supplier Country’s NDC.
Private Sector buyers have three pathways:
2. Private sector buyers provide results-based payments without taking title to ERs.
3. Private sector buyers take title to ERs. Under this option the Supplier will transfer the ERs to the buyer on the ART registry. The supplier country may include the underlying mitigation in accounting for its NDC. The private sector buyer must transparently communicate that the underlying mitigation contributes to the Supplier country’s NDC implementation and achievement.
4. Private sector buyers take title to ERs for which the Supplier Country is willing to make a corresponding adjustment. Under this option the Supplier will transfer the ERs to the buyer on the ART registry, and the supplier country will apply corresponding adjustments for the underlying mitigation in accounting for its NDC.
For all pathways, the ART registry will clearly identify each issued ER for which the Supplier Country intends to or did carry out a corresponding adjustment for the underlying ERs in accounting for its NDC. In pathway 4, the application of a corresponding adjustment ensures the underlying mitigation is not double-counted.
Coalition participants transacting under pathway 3 should transparently communicate in public disclosures (e.g. corporate websites, annual sustainability reports) that the mitigation underlying units purchased through LEAF counts toward the Supplier Country’s NDC implementation and achievement.
These requirements – along with the buyer criteria detailed in the Call for Proposals document – will be ensured by the administrative coordinator through periodic checks. Should a corporate participant not make appropriate disclosures, the administrative coordinator will attempt to clarify the requirements with the participant. Following a notice period and a decision by LEAF Coalition participants, companies which continue to fail to disclose will not be able to continue to participate in the Coalition.
Standards and guidance bodies and the broader media and NGO community have a vital role to play in ensuring companies maintain their commitments. Beyond internal mechanisms, LEAF Coalition participants will look to broader civil society actors to further support accountability, and to bring any issues to the attention of the Coalition to support the process above.
