On September 27th & 28th, the Plan Vivo Foundation Carbon Standard held its stakeholder event in Edinburgh, Scotland. COTAP’s founder Tim Whitley participated in a panel titled “What does ‘scaling with care’ look like from different perspectives?” A full summary of the event, with links to other presentations, can be found here.
Tim (bald gentleman on the right) experienced some pretty serious imposter syndrome as he shared the stage with Plan Vivo Trustee Emily Fripp, Plan Vivo CEO Keith Bohannon, Vanga Blue Forest Coordinator Mwanrusi Mwafrica, Carbon Tanzania CEO Marc Baker, Taking Root CEO Kahlil Baker (Taking Root’s CommuniTree project in Nicaragua was COTAP’s first partner project in 2011), and Molly Hawes, Senior Climate Action and Engagement Manager at Springer Nature.
Strenghtening Plan Vivo’s Regional Presence
The stakeholder event (this was COTAP’s third) is a great way to connect in-person with existing project leaders, as well as network with potential collaborators from all over the world who share the value of inclusive and pro-poor climate action.On this panel, FIVE out of COTAP’s six currently-supported projects participated: Nakau CEO Robbie Henderson (Drawa project in Fiji), Ecotrust Uganda’s Executive Director Pauline Nantongo, AMBIO’s Helena Barona (Scolel’te project in Mexico), Tambor Lyngdoh of the Khasi Hills REDD+ Project in India, Emmy Primadonna of KKI Warsi’s Bujang Raba project in Indonesia, and Plan Vivo Trustee Mark Pfoffenberger.
Tambor and Emmy presented recorded presentations as they weren’t able to obtain visas, so it was great to also hear Mark, who along with his spouse Kate Smith-Hanssen, has been instrumental in both projects’ implementation and success, represent both projects in person.
More about COTAP & Plan Vivo
Since 2011, COTAP has exclusively supported projects certified by Plan Vivo. Plan Vivo, the world’s oldest voluntary carbon standard, celebrated its 25th birthday in 2022. Today, over 100,000 rural community members are engaged in 27 Plan Vivo projects spanning 285,000 hectares in 21 countries. These projects have created over 7 million tonnes of planned CO2 emissions reductions and have channeled over $25 million to these communities, some of the poorest on Earth.
Plan Vivo remains the only carbon standard to require that projects share a minimum of 60% of carbon revenues with local communities. Combined with COTAP’s transparent pricing of $15/tonne and modest margin of 10%, this means that an unparalleled $8.10+ of community income is created per tonne offset through COTAP.
