Standard development
Integrating social, biodiversity and carbon values in the conservation, protection and restoration of Natural Forests
Natural Forest Standard
Robust, easy to manage crediting program specifically for jurisdictional REDD+ projects
About Us
Creating a Standard that recognises the importance of the world’s ecosystems and the ecologically-significant value they hold
Ecosystem Certification Organisation (ECO) has worked with industry specialists to develop the Natural Forest Standard (NFS). This is an efficient, accessible and scientifically-robust Standard to certify the integrated carbon,
social and biodiversity values of natural forests at risk from deforestation and degradation.
The Natural Forest Standard is a jurisdictional REDD+ crediting program. It includes unique features that are specifically designed as a streamlined framework to give it distinctiveness within the market and includes:
risk-based Approach
Unified risk-based performance benchmark approach for consistent and comparable baseline calculations
Integrated Biodiversity Value
Normative Biodiversity Metric for assessing the biodiversity value and significance of project areas
Specifically-designed
Designed and developed specifically for jurisdictional medium to large-scale natural forest and non-commercial forest REDD+ projects
ISO Framework-Compatible
ISO 14064-3 and ISO 14065 compatible for project-level validation and verification for authenticating the carbon assertions and project benefits
Latest News
~ 29th April 2025 ~
NFS ECO Appoints Northern Trust to Administer Natural Capital Credits
The Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem™ will provide lifecycle management for digital carbon credits certified under the Natural Forest Standard
This development marks our commitment to provide full lifecycle management of all digital carbon credits today and in the future, ensuring transparency and traceability for all Natural Capital Credits issued to projects verified under the Natural Forest Standard. There will be a transition period between the registry platforms, based on a phased roll-out, and all registry users will be contacted.
The Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem™, offered through The Northern Trust Company in Chicago, is a fully digital carbon ecosystem for the end-to-end lifecycle management of digital voluntary carbon credits. Powered by the Northern Trust Matrix Zenith™ digital assets platform, it offers transparent lifecycle management of voluntary carbon credit transactions.
The Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem is owned and managed by Northern Trust, one of the world’s leading providers of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management, and banking. It has a global presence with offices in 24 U.S. states and Washington D.C. and 22 locations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. For more than 135 years, Northern Trust has earned distinction as an industry leader for exceptional service, financial expertise, integrity, and innovation. For more information, please visit northerntrust.com/carbon-ecosystem.
Standard Documentation
There are a number of documents available for the Natural Forest Standard.
Further documents can be found in the documentation download section of the NFS website
NFS standard
This document sets out the normative requirements for projects working in alignment with the Natural Forest Standard for the validation, monitoring and verification of projects
NFS Guidance
The Guidance document is available to assist developers in meeting the requirements of the Natural Forest Standard, and for verifiers to assess the conformity of projects to the Standard
NFS Methodology
NFS Methodology 001.1b is a risk-based methodology for quantifying the Natural Capital Credits issued to projects operating under the Natural Forest Standard, for application in Amazonia