What is “Activity Data” and How is it Used in VM0048?

Assessing and developing avoided emissions forestry projects has been conducted under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) for the last 15 years. However, these practices have changed significantly since “VM0048 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, v1.0” was released in late 2023. Although all carbon methodologies are continually refined, consolidating 15 years of VCS “reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation” (REDD) methodologies into VM0048 is a very significant change.

Readers new to nature-based solution (NBS) projects, forestry activities and land-use that generate carbon credits are typically organized into three categories:

1. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Projects

These projects generate credits by quantifying the avoided emissions when illegal, informal or unorganized forest clearance or timber removal is prevented by the carbon project.

2. Improved Forest Management (IFM) Projects

These are best applied when a commercial timber opportunity is managed to increase carbon stocks over time, avoid emissions from equipment or secondary sources, or forego commercial logging entirely in favor of conservation.

3. Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (ARR) Projects

Quickly trending in the carbon market, ARR projects involve tree planting and regrowth of forests on either deforested land or degraded forests. These projects are credited on the sequestration of atmospheric carbon into new vegetative growth.

Activity Data is a concept that applies only to REDD projects and is intended to address specific critiques of previous REDD methodologies.

REDD Projects and Activity Data

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For REDD projects, the avoided emissions of the actual, real-world project are compared to a counterfactual “baseline” of the emissions that would have occurred had the project not intervened. This comparison of the project’s operating scenario to the counterfactual baseline scenario is conducted during the initial project feasibility assessment, again during early development, and finally encoded into the Project Description (or similar documentation).

Previous criticisms of REDD projects have often targeted qualitative or quantitative disagreement on the change from how the project calculated its “baseline emissions” relative to the “project scenario emissions.” The delta between the two determines the number of credits the project receives, with a credit equal to a tonne  of avoided atmospheric carbon.

Prior REDD methodologies used variations on determining a “reference region” that would be used as the area without a project where deforestation impacts could be observed, and those would be applied to the actual project area where conservation activities occurred.

Critiques of projects were often that the reference regions selected to calculate baseline emissions were not representative of the conditions in the project scenario.

For example, REDD projects have been accused of comparing areas not truly under threat to reference regions with heavy deforestation, maximizing the difference between the two and the number of credits.

While the validity of these criticisms is project by project, VM0048 seeks to remove this critique by providing a systematic solution for high-quality carbon projects. Rather than a project determining its reference region by application of technical requirements, Verra (the non-profit that administers the VCS) will provide each project with Activity Data that determines the baseline emissions.

The hope is that by providing Activity Data from a consistent source, produced according to consistent methods, project quality will increase due to fewer actual or perceived issues with baseline quantification.

Where does VM0048 Activity Data Come From?

The sea change in baseline definition that occurs in VM0048 is that Verra is commissioning National / Provincial (typically data produced at the national level and divided into the provincial or state level) activity data itself, rather than relying on project developers or governments (e.g. Forest Emission Reference Levels). Activity Data is available on Verra’s website and the service provider is preparing the data set.

What is VM0048 Activity Data?

Effectively, the dataset that Verra has commissioned applies an analysis of recent historical deforestation (the conversion of forest to non-forest at the geospatially observable level) to produce a risk map of how threatened the remaining forests within the jurisdiction are by future deforestation. This article does not seek to explain the technical process by which the risk map is produced, but rather to emphasize the outcome:

• That all remaining forests in the jurisdiction will be assigned a comparative risk of deforestation based on their proximity to recent historical deforestation.
• The calculation of baseline emissions will be determined by assessing the level of relative threat of deforestation to the forests specifically enrolled in the project.
• There will still be a counterfactual, projects will still compare their actual outcomes to a hypothetical threat of what would have happened without the project.
  • The way that the baseline is calculated, and the group that does the calculating, will be the same across all projects in a jurisdiction.
• The goal of this approach is to increase project quality by removing the potential critique that the baseline emissions are not representative of the actual project area.
  • So, a developer using VM0048 can be assured they are generating credits using the latest methodology that incorporates critiques of previous projects.

Finally, VM0048 seeks to emulate so-called “jurisdictional” REDD projects by:

• Determining the potential emissions of all forests in the baseline scenario for the state or province.
• Allocating potential emissions based on risk into a common pool, a risk-allocated baseline for the province or state.
• Align all projects in the province or state to draw on the same common pool of potential emissions, depending on how threatened the forests are within their project area, and “nest” under the same umbrella.
  • Thus, VM0048 approximates the “jurisdictional” nature of a government-led or government-designed “jurisdictional nested REDD” program.

What does this Mean for Project Developers?

• There is a transitional period while Verra produces the Activity Data according to the schedule linked above.
• Projects will submit their specific project area to Verra and receive an Activity Data Report that gives the expected baseline emissions for their project, based on the level of risk allocated to forests in their project area.
  • That will be compared to actual performance in the real world from monitoring data.
• VM0048 is still a counterfactual system, but it makes some of the elements more consistent and makes some choices about how to characterize threats that can be consistently applied.

How EP Carbon Can Help

Project Developers may still be left to wonder: How can we estimate our baselines now, before the Verra Activity Data is available for my area, to assess the feasibility of a REDD project?

With that, EP Carbon can help. While we chose not to bid on the production of official VCS Activity Data, we are recognized by Verra as having the capacity to provide Activity Data based on our prior work on REDD projects. Having followed Verra’s open-source documentation, we can approximate VM0048 Activity Data to enable the cost-effective feasibility assessment of REDD projects without waiting for the production of official data.

EP Carbon can guide you through the process of development under VM0048, including the request and inclusion of official VCS Activity Data in your project documentation.

Additionally, we can also model that data for the purpose of feasibility assessment prior to its availability. Let us know how we can help assess your REDD+ project, both with regard to Activity Data and comprehensively according to the quantitative and qualitative requirements of VCS carbon projects.