Community guidelines for accessing forestry voluntary carbon ... - FAO

Background information
Leakage
Leakage (see glossary) is the ‘leaking away’ of achieved carbon benefits,
e.g. reductions in GHG emissions that are offset by increases in emissions
outside the project area or in other carbon pools. A forestry VCM project
must demonstrate convincingly it has taken all sources of leakage into
account when calculating potential carbon benefits. Leakage can happen
by either moving the baseline activity somewhere else (activity shifting),
or by ‘market leakage’, where a different actor steps in to fill a gap in
the market caused by the reduced supply of a product or service as a
result of project activity, and in doing so causes emissions. This is also
discussed in more detail later on, but it is important to note here that
the project must aim to limit leakage, through proper design, and must
adjust the projected carbon benefits of the project to account for any
leakage that cannot be prevented.
If a forestry project meets these requirements, it can be considered a
truly additional forestry VCM project.
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