Following 18 months of development, ECO were delighted to make their initial presentations of the awaited Natural Forest Standard to some of the industry’s important stakeholders.
With Ernst & Young, Green IFSC Ireland and Davy Stockbrokers amongst the attendees, the introduction of the Standard and its position in the voluntary market was well received.
Vicky Kelly, Director of ECO said “It was important for us as a Standard to start getting ourselves known within the industry as a Standard that compliments not contradicts the Standards that are already on the market. Having identified the need for developing a standard that specifically focuses on areas of natural forest at risk from deforestation and degradation, we have a clear vision of where we fit within the market.”
In association with Ecometrica, ECO have developed the NFS to be a transparent, responsive and unique standard, focusing on natural forest projects, with integrated carbon, social and biodiversity values, with the incorporation of the Normative Biodiversity Metric, which is a practical method of assessing biodiversity value of each project area. The NBM has been devised and developed by David Jarrett, and the NFS is unique in the market for being able to offer this as an integral part of the offsets that will be generated from the projects registered with the NFS.