Verra, W+ Standard, and Wonderbag of South Africa are pleased to announce the application of the joint VCS/W+ Standard certification process to measure emission reductions and women’s empowerment results.
Women play an essential role in addressing climate change and ensuring community resiliency. Empowering women is a critical strategy for improving outcomes of climate projects. But their contributions are often not accounted for, and very limited climate finance reaches women at the local level, if at all. In parallel, buyers of carbon credits are increasingly interested in the co-benefits of their investments in climate projects but require more transparency in the way those co-benefits are measured and how benefits are shared with the communities that make such impacts possible.
The new collaboration between the W+ StandardTM and the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program addresses this gap. The two standard organizations have developed a streamlined process to measure the impacts of projects on climate and women’s empowerment simultaneously, generating W+-labeled VCUs for credits that meet the requirements of both standards. This will incentivize climate projects to do more for women’s empowerment and drive more resources to women and women’s organizations working on climate solutions. In addition, buyers of W+-labeled VCUs will be able to demonstrate that they contribute to both SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality) by providing women with financial resources that compensate them for their contributions to climate adaptation and mitigation, and enable them to improve their livelihoods.
On Thursday, 10 September at noon EDT, 6pm CEST, 6pm SAST, the W+ Standard and Verra will be co-hosting a webinar to discuss the importance of joining efforts to support climate resilience and gender equality; present the perspective of a project developer and a buyer of carbon credits; and share details about the streamlined VCS and W+ certification process.
Speakers:
- Jeannette Gurung, Executive Director, WOCAN
- David Antonioli, CEO, Verra
- Sarah Collins, Founder and CEO of Wonderbag, South Africa
- Kevin Whitfield, Head African Treasuries, Carbon and Financial Products, Nedbank CIB, South Africa
- Christopher Chapman, Senior Program Officer, Verra
- Maria Lee, W+ Coordinator (Moderator)
Please address any questions to cchapman@verra.org or coordinator@wplus.org.