Why do we need to restore forests and can forestry carbon offsets be a good thing for the planet?

Conversation with Thomas Duong, the CEO and founder of The Green Projects (TGP)

Forests are incredibly important for our existence, no wonder they are called the lungs of the planet.  They draw in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, they store large amounts of carbon in their biomass and soil, they regulate water cycle and protect soil from erosion, they are the source of biodiversity which underpins our ecosystem and wellbeing.  Protecting and restoring forests is essential for mitigating the impacts of climate change, and in this episode we are exploring whether the system of carbon credits could play a role in this.  

With the new sustainability disclosure regulations such as SFDR in the EU and SDR in the UK, European companies are encouraged to calculate and report their carbon footprint, which might boost the market for carbon offsets. However sustainable a business is, there will be always some unabated e missions, which a company might want to offset with carbon credits. 

But can we trust carbon offsets?  Carbon offsets have a bad reputation at the moment.  They are often associated with the greenwashing, as many companies use carbon credits as a license to avoid decarbonisation. We have also seen scandals, where the journalists uncovered significant problems with the carbon credits that were certified by Verra, one of the world's main organisations approving carbon offset projects.  Can we restore trust in these instruments? 

Today we are talking with Thomas Duong, whose company aims to raise awareness about deforestation problem that goes beyond Amazon forests.  They work with IoT, AI and Blockchain technologies to create high-quality forestry carbon credits that motivate local farmers in Vietnam and other locations to scale up afforestation and reforestation efforts. 

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This episode wad recorded for the training course Blockchain Applications in Climate Change which you can find here.

Produced by ⁠Julia Mariasova⁠ from Shortlisted Productions.

Music by Alex Kizenkov from Pixabay.

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