Five steps — from baseline to retirement
The documentary chain of a KEYSAFE CARBON credit, step by step. Verra VCS standard, VM0007 REDD+ methodology for community forests, accredited third-party verification, public registration on the Verra registry. Technical reference — no promises, no approximations.
Every carbon credit is a trace — not a promise
What follows is not a sales pitch. It is the operational protocol that produces a VCS credit from baseline to retirement. Five steps, two third-party auditors, one public registry. No certification is granted in-house.
Historical baseline — measuring what would have happened without the project
Establishment of the reference scenario (baseline) based on observed historical deforestation in an ecologically and socioeconomically comparable reference area. Satellite imagery analysis over a minimum of 10 years, ground-truthing, business-as-usual (BAU) deforestation modelling. The baseline locks in the emissions level that will serve as reference for each verification.
Design and validation — additionality, permanence, leakage
Drafting of the Project Design Document (PDD) — project description, demonstration of additionality (the project would not happen without carbon revenues), permanence analysis (contractual commitment over the crediting period), estimation of leakage outside the boundary. Validation by an accredited Verra auditor before registration. The PDD is public on the Verra registry.
Measurement, reporting, verification — the registry discipline
Deployment of the MRV (Measurement, Reporting, Verification) protocol. Forest inventory plots, biomass measurement, satellite monitoring (Global Forest Watch, Planet), field notebook, georeferenced photographs. Annual Monitoring Report documenting avoided emissions over the period, relative to the locked baseline. Protocol consistent with VM0007 REDD+.
Independent audit — the step without which the credit does not exist
Verification of the Monitoring Report by a Validation & Verification Body (VVB) accredited by Verra — typically SCS Global Services, DNV, Aenor or Earthood. Documentary audit + field mission + community interviews. Public verification report, signed by the VVB. No credits are issued until the verification is validated. Contractual frequency — generally, at least every 5 years.
Verra registration — every credit carries a serial number
On VVB validation, Verra issues Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) corresponding to avoided emissions. Each VCU carries a unique serial number registered on the Verra registry. 10 to 20 % of credits are placed in a shared buffer pool (cross-project permanence guarantee). Commercialised credits are retired publicly by the final buyer — no double-counting possible.
The VM0007 method — designed for community forests
The VM0007 methodology is the Verra VCS standard specifically adapted to REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) on community-managed forests. It requires a robust baseline, demonstration of additionality, a field MRV protocol and a third-party verification cycle. This is the method we apply — without variation, without concession.
The numbers behind this protocol are public: the PDD, the Monitoring Report, the VVB verification report and the Verra registry. Anyone can consult them. Transparency is not a commercial argument — it is the condition of existence of a credit.
What Verra VCS requires — and what we sign off on
The project would not happen without carbon revenues
Additionality is demonstrated in the PDD: without carbon financing, the community forest would not have the resources to withstand pressures (logging, agricultural conversion). Economic analysis, BAU alternative, contractual evidence. Assessed by the VVB.
Multi-year commitment, buffer pool guarantee
Contractual commitment over the crediting period (10 to 40 years depending on the project). 10–20 % of credits contributed to Verra's shared buffer pool — guarantee against reversal (fire, accidental deforestation). Permanence is collectively backed by all registered VCS projects.
Measuring deforestation displacement outside the boundary
The project can displace deforestation pressure to neighbouring areas. VM0007 requires a monitored leakage belt, and accounting of emissions that occur there. These leakages are subtracted from issued credits — methodological conservatism required.
Uncertainty margin, buffer pool, statistical prudence
VM0007 imposes statistical conservatism: biomass estimates bounded at the lower end of the confidence interval, uncertainty discount applied to issued credits, scenario prudence. A Verra VCS credit is by design underestimated — not overestimated.
Why VM0007 and not the alternatives
Several REDD+ methodologies coexist on the Verra marketplace — VM0006, VM0007, VM0009, VM0015, ACM0011. Each addresses a different project type. VM0007 is the only one that explicitly handles unplanned frontier deforestation in mosaic zones under community governance. That is the actual situation of the Cameroonian Congo Basin: no industrial pioneer front, no monoculture, no isolated forest concession — an alternation of villages, community forests, agricultural land and relict primary forests.
VM0015 would require a broader reference perimeter and more sophisticated spatial modelling — but Cameroonian cadastral data do not support it today. VM0006 is reserved for large-scale sites such as concessions; our model is deliberately fragmented to respect the boundaries of communal land titles. VM0007 applies rigorously, without forcing reality into a mould that is not its own.
This choice is documented in the Project Design Document submitted to Verra. It is contestable; it has already been contested; it holds because it fits the field.
Project timeline
Between the decision to engage a project and the issuance of the first credits, count fourteen to eighteen months. It is a constraint, not slowness — each step conditions the validity of the next.
Community framing
Signature of the partnership agreement with the village association or municipality. Participatory mapping. No line of code or satellite image enters the process until free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) has been documented.
Baseline & PDD
Collection of ten years of satellite imagery, manual interpretation of a sample, field validation of a sub-sample, computation of the mean annual deforestation rate in the reference zone. This phase produces the Project Design Document submitted to Verra.
Verra validation
Public comments on the PDD, written responses, VVB auditor field mission, Validation Report published on the registry. A project can be rejected at this stage; if so, no credit will ever be issued.
First MRV cycle
Deployment of the field protocol, annual monitoring report, VVB verification, credit issuance. Only at this stage can a credit be sold. A serious project refuses any pre-sale before this point.
What we publish, what we hold back
The transparency of the Verra registry is contractual: PDD, Monitoring Reports, Verification Reports, serial numbers of each credit issued — everything is public. This is what allows a corporate buyer, a journalist or an independent auditor to reconstruct the documentary chain without asking our permission.
In addition, we publish methodological summaries (this sheet is an excerpt), position notes on sector debates, and sanitised extracts from our operational reports. We commit to publishing any methodological update within sixty days of its adoption by Verra.
We do not publish the individual GPS coordinates of inventory plots (wood theft and social engineering risks), the personal data of village association members (personal protection) or commercial contracts with buyers (standard confidentiality clause). These exceptions are bounded: they protect third parties, not KEYSAFE.
The methodology is anchored in KEYSAFE CARBON's activity
Aggregation of community forests, Verra VCS certification, commercialisation to corporate buyers. The method described here is the one we deploy on each pilot zone of the Congo Basin.
← See the KEYSAFE CARBON pageField protocol
