Ecosystem Certification Organisation
Ecosystem Certification Organisation is a not-for-profit organisation developing the Natural Forest Standard (NFS) that is to provide an efficient and effective mechanism for crediting the carbon and ecosystem benefits resulting from the avoided deforestation and degradation of large scale natural forest projects.
Our Ethos
There is an increasing focus on natural climate solutions and the biodiversity and ecosystem benefits that are present within the world’s Natural Forests. ECO’s development of the Natural Forest Standard (NFS) provides a framework for protecting both the forests and the biodiversity that exists in them, through the quantification and certification of both carbon and biodiversity, whilst also providing livelihood benefits to the local communities.
The ECO NFS has been developed due to a clear need for a standard that includes both the quantification of carbon benefits from avoided deforestation and degradation of forests together with biodiversity and social benefits into one all-encompassing Standard.
The functionality of the Standard optimises the time requirements of bringing projects from initial implementation to credit issuance in the most responsive, efficient timescale possible, whilst also keeping the integrity and transparency that are essential criteria to the credibility of the Standard.
The ECO NFS is unique in its design as it has the project-developers needs in mind, whilst incorporating the integrity of stringent eligibility criteria with efficient third party validation and verification processes.
Development Partners
Ecosystem Certification Organisation has worked in conjunction with Ecometrica, an Edinburgh based company of specialists and experts in greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, ecosystem services, climate change policy, remote sensing and web based programming.
They have unrivalled experience in the development and application of the major standards for greenhouse gas accounting and ecosystem change measurement.
Together, ECO and Ecometrica are developing the Natural Forest Standard to ensure that both project developers’ needs and scientific and technical measures are brought together into a useable, efficient process that is accessible yet rigorous.
ECO also enlisted the participation of Independent Expert Reviewers for each stage of the development process, and would like to acknowledge and thank the following individuals for their input:
Jeffrey Hayward, Rainforest Alliance; Lucio Pedroni, Carbon Decisions International; Marissa Camargo, Indufor; Duncan Macqueen, International Institute for Environment and Development; Catriona Clunas, Ecometrica; David Jarrett, Ecometrica.