Plan Vivo

Plan Vivo is one of the oldest voluntary carbon market standards, originating from a research project at the University of Edinburgh in the mid-1990s and piloted with farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. It is now administered by the Plan Vivo Foundation, a Scottish charity, which certifies projects that generate Plan Vivo Certificates (PVCs) representing one tonne of CO₂ equivalent sequestered or avoided through land-use activities such as agroforestry, reforestation, forest restoration, and avoided deforestation.

The standard distinguishes itself from larger registries like Verra (VCS) and Gold Standard by requiring that projects be community-led and that a defined share of revenue (historically at least 60%) flow directly to smallholder participants and community groups. Land tenure, free prior and informed consent, and participatory design are core eligibility requirements. Projects must also demonstrate livelihood and biodiversity co-benefits, not just carbon outcomes.

Key features of the methodology include:

• Ex-ante issuance: certificates can be issued based on projected sequestration over a defined period, with monitoring and true-up over time — a feature that has drawn both interest (it provides upfront finance to poor producers) and criticism (it carries delivery risk relative to ex-post crediting).
• Plan Vivo Standard (PV Climate), updated in 2023 to align more closely with ICVCM Core Carbon Principles and IPCC guidance.
• A separate PV Nature standard launched in 2023 for biodiversity outcomes.

Plan Vivo projects tend to be small in volume compared with REDD+ mega-projects, and buyers are often companies seeking high-integrity, development-linked credits. Like the rest of the voluntary market, it faced scrutiny during the 2023 wave of media investigations into forest carbon credit quality, though Plan Vivo's smallholder-focused model has generally been viewed more favourably by NGOs than industrial-scale avoided-deforestation methodologies.