Panels & Furniture Asia January/February 2023

ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT
communities, involved in Treevive’s projects
can benefit from the projects through
benefit sharing agreements, as Gort
declared.
When seeking carbon funding, forest or
forest project managers often face several
challenges. Aside from their own timber or
non-timber forest products revenue streams,
they often have limited access to finance,
while lacking quality forest projects that
generate carbon credits and high-end buyers
of their carbon credits. This lack can stem
from a knowledge gap in carbon market and
certification, and project development.
As such, SFM, IFM or REDD+ carbon projects
can be a viable way for them to receive
ecosystem payments for the maintenance
and enhancement of carbon in forests.
After all, like all kinds of businesses, forest
management relies on profit to sustain their
operations. Carbon projects are thus needed
to create a more robust business case for the
sustainable management and conservation
of forest landscapes, and to protect them
from conversion to other land uses.
Businesses or investors face a different set
of problems. Gort identified that they often
do not know the criteria and characteristics
of high-quality forest projects, and how
to certify carbon credits. Similar to forest
project managers, businesses and investors
have a limited network of forest projects.
Treevive therefore exists to plug these gaps
between investors and forest projects and
managers. Gort added: “Successful profitdriven
companies understand that looking
beyond the next quarter is key for long-term
success. This also means securing a license to
operate from investors, customers and other
stakeholders. Alignment with international
climate agreements is one of the elements in
that. This means lowering the CO2 footprint
of their own operations and value chain, and
compensating for their currently unavoidable
emissions via the purchase of carbon credits.
This will lead to more profitable business in
the long run.”
COMPLIANCE AND TRANSPARENCY
Although the purchase of quality forest
carbon credits can potentially contribute
to forest conservation and restoration, Gort
emphasised that this should not divert a
company’s attention and resources from
reducing its own emissions: “Quality forest
carbon credit purchases need to be part
of broader emissions reduction strategy of
the buyer where emissions are accounted,
reduced, avoided and off-set on the pathway
to a science-based net-zero target that is
aligned with the Paris Agreement. We view offsets
as a short-term option for relevant impact
and an effective tool to compensate remaining
emissions.”
To that end, Gort asserted that Treevive
is strict in choosing the stakeholders and
projects they want to work with: “Our buyers
should not be involved in deforestation or
forest degradation activities. We assess whether
the purchasing company is in compliance
with our criteria. We are also committed to
engaging with investors that are actively and
transparently working towards realising the
Paris Agreement and that do not willingly
contribute to deforestation and the further
development of fossil fuels.”
On the flipside, forest projects and their
management must comply with Treevive’s
quality and performance indicators which
include sustainable management practices. For
projects with sustainable forestry elements,
the projects should be certified by or working
towards a third-party certification, such Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) or its equivalent.
Thus far, Treevive has onboarded five projects
for development and sales, of which three are
restoration projects, including afforestation,
reforestation and revegetation (ARR) in Latin
America, and two conservation projects in
Africa, in collaboration with REDD+.
Gort concluded: “We hope to significantly
accelerate climate finance, increasing by
€150m, for the conservation, restoration
and sustainable management of tropical
forests with a group of committed long-term
buyers and investment partners. As forestry
is by nature long-term, so do we see our
relationships.” P
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