Yes, ART has been approved or endorsed by a number of organizations and initiatives including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the LEAF Coalition, the International Carbon Reduction & Offset Alliance (ICROA) and the Commodities Jurisdictional Approach (CJA).
ICAO
In 2020 ART was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to supply TREES Credits to airlines for their compliance under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). In 2021, ART’s approval by ICAO was expanded to include TREES Credits issued after 2020. The ICAO Council decision signals an exciting milestone for protecting the world’s remaining forests. Although global forest loss contributes approximately 20 percent of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, credits from REDD+, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, have been disallowed in all major carbon markets including the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol and the E.U. Emissions Trading Scheme. The CORSIA is therefore the first international regulated carbon market to approve REDD+ – a critical category of emission reduction crediting.
LEAF Coalition
Also in 2021, ART was endorsed by the LEAF (Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance) Coalition as the REDD+ Standard to ensure the integrity of results in the $1 billion Call for Proposals for jurisdictional REDD+ results. At COP26, the LEAF Coalition announced that 23 jurisdictions had submitted eligible proposals to deliver TREES Credits. The jurisdictions collectively have the potential to protect up to half a billion hectares of forest, greater than the area of the European Union, and their estimated emission reductions amount to several times LEAF’s initial goal of 100 million tons. LEAF includes the governments of the U.S., the U.K and Norway and corporations including Amazon, Airbnb, Bayer, BCG, BlackRock, Burberry, Delta Air Lines, E.ON, EY, GSK, Intertek, Inditex, McKinsey, Nestlé, PwC, Salesforce, SAP, Unilever and Walmart.org.
ICROA
ART is a provisionally approved offsetting standard under the International Carbon Reduction & Offset Alliance, ICROA. ICROA member firms, which currently provide carbon offset and management services to thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals, must only use offsets verified under the most widely respected standards as approved by ICROA. ICROA member companies follow a code of best practice that provides confidence that resulting offsets are real, verified, permanent, additional and unique and that sets guidelines for how such offsets are sold.
Commodities & Jurisdiction Approach (CJA)
ART is one of only two pre-qualified global standards under the CJA which means that jurisdictions approved under ART are eligible to join the CJA through a streamlined process. The CJA aims to link ambitious jurisdictional forest and climate programs with companies who want to reduce deforestation and associated risks in their commodity supply chains.It offers a standardized assessment of jurisdictional programs that are reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions at scale, based on six criteria which are in line with the provisions for REDD+ institutionalized in the Paris Agreement. The CJA originated in 2015, inspired by a commitment by two leading companies and subsequently backed by a multi-stakeholder consortium to generalize for more companies’ uptake. The CJA is a collaborative initiative being coordinated by Climate Focus, WWF, and Meridian Institute.