Verra aims to lead the way for REDD+ projects and programs to help communities and governments conserve and enhance their forest resources while simultaneously addressing climate change. Accordingly, Verra is updating baseline, leakage, monitoring, and uncertainty procedures for Avoiding Unplanned Deforestation and Degradation (AUDD) project activities in order to facilitate their alignment with REDD+ jurisdictional programs and Verra’s Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) rules.
Survey
Projects using the updated versions of Verra’s AUDD methodologies (VM0006, VM0007, VM0009, VM0015 and VM0037) will establish their baselines based on activity data that Verra will develop and allocate. To estimate the potential demand for this data, we ask project proponents who are using the above-referenced methodologies or who intend to register an AUDD project in 2022 or 2023 to complete this AUDD project survey.
Policy Announcement
Verra recommends that AUDD project proponents planning to register a project in the coming months to wait for the publication of the revised methodologies in early 2022. However, the current version of AUDD methodologies may be used until the release of the new methodologies. Note that the use of a jurisdictional Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL) or its components to estimate a project’s baseline outside of Verra’s Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ framework (i.e., for standalone projects) is not allowed until the revised AUDD methodologies are published.