Plan Vivo Foundation

About Plan Vivo  

The Plan Vivo Foundation (PVF) is a registered UK charity, based in Edinburgh, that supports vulnerable rural communities across the world to develop innovative nature-based solutions (NBS) to reduce poverty, conserve important ecosystems and tackle climate change – primarily through our stewardship of the Plan Vivo Standard. The Standard is a core set of social, environmental and governance requirements that projects must meet to become certified under Plan Vivo. PVF and in-country partners support communities and small holders to pass the rigorous certification process and enable access to finance from the ecosystems services and voluntary carbon market to support community-led forest conservation, restoration and agroforestry to deliver impact for climate, communities and nature.  

The Standard is internationally recognised for its focus on ethical and fairly traded climate services, which ensures that a greater share of income reaches those that most need it. Our unique model ensures that at least 60% of benefits go back to the communities on the ground, which has a significant impact on strengthening resilience for vulnerable communities and reducing drivers of deforestation. Through our collaborative approaches and focus on small holders and communities we have achieved a significant impact over the last 25 years. We now support a global network of 28 certified projects in over 20 countries, have emission reductions of over 7 million tonnes CO2 and have reached 100,000 people - channelling 25 million dollars (USD) directly to communities. 

About ACORN  

The Plan Vivo Foundation and Dutch Cooperative bank, Rabobank, have been working closely together to develop the ACORN framework - the first dedicated framework for smallholder agroforestry in the carbon credit market. ACORN stands for ‘Agroforestry CRUs for the Organic Restoration of Nature’ and aims to unlock the international carbon market for smallholder farmers in the developing world. To do this, ACORN introduces a scalable agroforestry and carbon sequestration monitoring system. Using remote sensing technology and artificial intelligence brings down the costs of biomass measuring, making CO2sequestration monitoring and monetization cost-effective and scalable as well as more transparent and data-driven. One of the main reasons for developing this framework was the high barriers to entry for smallholder farmers to enter the voluntary carbon market. Certification costs are generally high and the certification process is often difficult for individual farmers and local project developers to follow. By combining the experience of Plan Vivo, as the certifying partner, together with the network and capacity of Rabobank, we hope to lower these barriers to entry through ACORN.