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Building Blue Carbon Projects
An Introductory Guide
Carbon Finance
Carbon offsetting is a well-known method of financing conservation by allowing an entity to
purchase the ability to compensate for their carbon pollution in exchange for carbon not being
emitted elsewhere (as it would otherwise have been). In this context, Blue Carbon ecosystems are
kept intact, restored or managed to secure and increase their carbon stocks. Carbon financing
involves different standard-setting organisations that provide guidance on developing projects for
carbon trading and bring validity to projects by ensuring they meet certain (often robust) criteria.
An exception being Plan Vivo, which is specifically designed for small-scale community projects,
not for producing offsets that will be traded in a market as it is the case for Verified Carbon
Standard credits, etc.).
Blue Carbon project’s need to address the issue of additionality, which, aims to ensure that the
project’s implementation is motivated primarily by the potential for receiving payments for the
carbon credits (versus an activity that would have been undertaken regardless). Further, there
needs to be assurance that the project will endure and not result in increased carbon dioxide or
other greenhouse emissions elsewhere (i.e., permanence and leakage), defined as follows
(adapted from Overseas Development Institute, undated):
Additionality
is the requirement that the carbon emissions after the implementation of a Blue
Carbon project are lower than those that would have occurred in the most plausible
alternative scenario to the implementation of the project.
Permanence
refers to the risk that emission removals by afforestation or reforestation
activities are reversed because Blue Carbon ecosystems (mangrove forests) are cut down or
destroyed by natural disaster.
Leakage
refers to refers to the risk that a Blue Carbon offset project displaces activities that
create emissions outside the boundaries of the project.
Key takeaway:
There may be more than one pathway to use the value of Blue Carbon to mitigate climate
change and improve coastal ecosystem management or achieve other project goals
Additionality, permanence, and leakage should be explored to ensure that projects are being
considered for their likelihood in generating carbon credits, their sustainability, and for
preventing emissions elsewhere.
1.5
Status of Blue Carbon Science
Over recent years there has been an expansion of coastal science from investigating the role of
carbon and nitrogen in terms of ecosystem productivity, and in the analysis of coastal wetland
resilience in terms of sea level rise, to the role of evolving and disturbed coastal ecosystems in the
global carbon cycle. This resulted from an evolving awareness about the role coastal ecosystems
could play an important role in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Intact coastal
ecosystems slowly but continuously remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in
