Global Database of Nature-Based Carbon Offset Boundaries
Renoster is proud to announce the public release of our Global Database of Nature-Based Carbon Offset Boundaries. The lack of transparent and standardized boundaries for carbon projects has been an ongoing problem without any viable solution for years.
"I’m continually surprised by the lack of standardization and consistency in spatial data available for carbon projects". - Nan Pond of Rubicon Carbon
Similarly, CarbonPlan shared a blog post a few months ago titled, “To know if an offset project is burning, first you have to find it”. The CarbonPlan team highlighted the lack of transparency and standardized boundaries, pointing out that that figuring out the location of an offset project shouldn't involve a scavenger hunt. Nature-based solutions (NbS) have become an important component of strategies to combat climate change, primarily through carbon offset strategies. However, the effectiveness of these projects is often questioned due to exaggerated claims and the absence of accessible boundary data. To address this, we have created a comprehensive database detailing the geospatial boundaries of 575 nature-based offset projects across 55 countries.
This resource combines data scraped from carbon project registries with manually georeferenced boundaries, covering project types such as avoided deforestation, afforestation, reforestation, re-vegetation, and improved forest management. Our database, validated with a high accuracy score, serves as a vital tool for verifying the efficacy of carbon offsets and enhancing transparency in NbS initiatives.
Our goal at Renoster is to democratize access to this data in order to increase transparency, and let scientists and policy makers use this to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of different carbon policies. We will continue to highlight which programs/policies have been most effective. We have segmented the areas into continents and posted them as geopackages on the following two registries, accompanied by a paper submitted for peer review.
Here are some interesting statistics about the database itself:
- Number of IFM projects: 252
- Number of ARR projects: 190
- Number of AD projects: 133
- 64.7% of Gold Standard projects lacked public location data
- 27.1% of American Carbon Registry projects
- 26.5% of Verra projects
- 8.2% of Climate Action Reserve
- 3% of Ecoregistry projects
🌎 View our Global Database here
🛰️ Download Open Source data here
