Verra, a nonprofit which sets the world’s leading climate action standards, and climate-tech firm Pachama announced a digital measuring, reporting, and verification (DMRV) platform that harnesses remote-sensing to measure forest CO2. The launch marks a milestone in global efforts to improve efficiency, transparency, and integrity in forest carbon projects.
Digital platforms aim to automate and standardize how carbon data is collected, analyzed, and validated, and reduce the costs and time needed to issue new carbon credits.
Earlier in 2022, Verra introduced a digital MRV working group to develop protocols, guidance, and frameworks for the use of third-party platforms in the company’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program. The Pachama project, an important outcome of the working group, is among the first operational platforms of this type and an important step toward building an ecosystem of digital platforms that increase the efficiency and accuracy of MRV processes.
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“This is the future of more transparent and streamlined MRV,” said Verra’s CEO David Antonioli. The pilot will provide valuable insights into how this and other similar platforms can be integrated into the VCS Program to improve the efficiency and scalability of CO2 markets, he also said.
“After four years of building our satellite data plus AI models to estimate forest carbon storage and deforestation risk, we’ve seen first hand the power of these digital tools to automate and scale carbon crediting,” said Diego Saez Gil, CEO of Pachama. Introducing digital tools to the CO2 market could allow tens of thousands of landowners and project proponents across the globe to rapidly access finance to protect and restore nature, while ensuring the integrity and verifiability of the carbon credited, he also said, adding that this could add up to achieve gigatonne level CO2 sequestration and the protection and restoration of hundreds of millions of forest hectares.
The remote sensing pilot is planned to begin before the end of 2022. Project findings will inform guidance for future similar DMRV platforms.
Read more: Pachama Is Transforming Carbon Crediting With Cutting-Edge Technology
