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    Fair Carbon™

    What is Fair Carbon?  It is a type of carbon offset or tree-planting program that does more than just guarantee that greenhouse gases are being removed from the atmosphere.  Fair Carbon programs support the three pillars of sustainability: fair economics, social justice, and environmental stewardship.

    Projects that create Fair Carbon are greenhouse gas emission reduction projects and tree-planting programs that additionally support local communities and environments.  Big Tree Climate Fund feels the solutions to preventing further global climate change have to come from the bottom up, rather than the top down.  Local communities must be engaged in and BENEFIT from any attempts at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and planting trees in their area.  It is from these beliefs that the idea for Fair Carbon was born.

    Big Tree Climate Fund provides Fair Carbon offsets and develops projects using the Fair Carbon Methodology

    Fair Carbon™ offsets meet Big Tree’s standards for being certified emission reductions and for providing benefits to local communities, environments and biodiversity.  Offset projects are vetted by Big Tree to assess whether they meet our high standards in addition to being certified by third parties for the emission reductions and the community and environmental benefits. Third party co-benefit certifications that often qualify as Fair Carbon include the Social Carbon standard and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standard.  Another standard that may qualify as Fair Carbon is the Plan Vivo standard with its support of small land-owners.  In all cases the projects are individually examined to ensure the design meets Big Tree’s Fair Carbon standard and will provide robust climatic, social and environmental benefits.

    The Fair Carbon Methodology is a tool used by Big Tree to design and implement its carbon offset and tree-planting projects so that they will show improvement in the following metrics throughout the life of the project and beyond.  The metrics are studied before the project with a variety of methods, including a community questionnaire, and then annually during to project to assess how the project is affecting local communities and the surrounding area.  The Fair Carbon metrics are:

    Social Justice

    • Education
      • Net enrollment in primary school
      • Female primary school completion rate
      • Male primary school completion rate
      • Percentage of adults (age 15+) that are literate
      • Percentage of women  (age 15+) that are literate
      • Percentage of youth (under age 15) that are literate
    •  Health
      • Mortality rate of children under age 5
      • Access to health clinic
      • Percentage of children under age 5 that are fully immunized against TB and measles
    • Water
      • Access to clean water
      • type of water source (unimproved, well, or piped)
    • Food/Nutrition
      • Access to protein, vegetal source, and fiber
    •  Access to concept of sustainability and resource scarcity
    • Access to recreation

     Fair Economics

    • Land tenure rights (use, control, or transfer rights)
    • Access to land, community land or hold legal certificate for their land
    • Access to profit sharing
    • Percentage of adults (age 15+) receiving region’s minimum wage
    • Percentage of men (age 15+) receiving country’s minimum wage
    • Percentage of women (age 15+) receiving country’s minimum wage
    • Percentage of adults living under $2 a day
    • Percentage of the community with physical assets “critical and common” for viable economic growth.  Can be related to land, tillage, transportation, communication/media, or other.
    • Access to finance, traditional or modern.

    Environmental

    • Regional
      • Percentage of area that is forest
      • Ratio of protected to non-protected land
    • Regional as it pertains to community
      • Prevalence of other tree plantings
      • Prevalence of using native trees in planting
      • Prevalence of planting timber trees
    • Project area
      • Biodiversity in the area
      • Soil Quality
      • Prevalence of invasive species
      • Amount of sequestered carbon

     

     

    A project that generates Fair Carbon offsets or tree-plantings, in addition to achieving its greenhouse gas benefits, strives to achieve improvements in all the above metrics within the local community and area.  

    Big Tree Climate Fund develops and sources Fair Carbon.  Look for it when you purchase carbon offsets and know that your money is going towards holistic solutions toward preventing further climate change.