The LEAF Coalition

Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forestfinance

What is LEAF? (and what is it not?)

The nature of LEAF

The LEAF Coalition is a voluntary initiative that seeks to leverage
private sector finance to support developing countries to reduce
emissions from forests. The initiative is open to all eligible (see
below) tropical and sub-tropical forest countries and jurisdictions.
Participation is voluntary.

The initiative uses the ART/TREES standard exclusively. As such,

eligible applicants will be representative of REDD+ jurisdictions
where, following ART/TREES, a jurisdiction is defined as national or
subnational in scale, with the boundaries of a subnational area
corresponding to the entire area of one or more administrative
jurisdictions no more than one level down from the national level.

In many cases, applicants will be federal governments as they often

control policy levers to effectively reduce deforestation. Sub-national
entities may also participate, following national government approval
in the form of a letter of authorization (as required by ART TREES).

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The LEAF Coalition offers large-scale, additional finance to forest countries that
deliver on ambitious forest protection plans. Importantly, forest countries may
decide to count the mitigation achieved, and paid for under LEAF, towards their
NDCs. Countries have the option, but are not required, to make a Corresponding
Adjustment for Emissions Reductions (ERs) that LEAF Coalition members have
paid for.

LEAF is designed to respond to the needs of forest countries that are moving
rapidly to reduce, halt, and reverse deforestation and forest and peat degradation
at scale.
Coalition partners recognise that halting tropical deforestation requires a wide
range of interventions and financial support. LEAF is part of a wider picture: By
mobilizing additional, private sector finance, LEAF will complement – not replace –
other programmes that meet countries’ diverse needs and objectives relating to
forest protection.

Applying the ART/TREES

The LEAF call for proposals is for ERs that are issued under the ART/TREES standard. Coalition members have chosen this
standard as these ERs are of high environmental and social integrity. The ART/TREES standard:
• Measures performance, and does not pre-determine or judge what types of interventions forest countries
take to reduce deforestation and degradation, or to restore forests.
• Requires countries to address and respect the social and environmental safeguards agreed under the UN
climate change convention.
• Incentivizes delivery of results at the national level. It also allows the rewarding of results at the subnational
level for a temporary period, with explicit approval from national governments.
• Leaves forest countries free to decide how and whether to nest projects and design appropriate benefit
sharing mechanisms, as long as double counting is avoided and information on the use of proceeds is shared
transparently as per safeguards requirements.

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The LEAF Coalition
Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forestfinance

Use of Proceeds under LEAF Raising ambitions under LEAF

• Finance will be channelled through approved
financial intermediaries, chosen by the forest
country. This will ensure that relevant social,
environmental, financial, and fiduciary safeguards
are met.
• Within these parameters, forest countries and
jurisdictions are free to deploy payments towards
achieving their nationally determined contributions
and sustainable economic development goals, with
a priority for forest protection and forest
restoration, including REDD+ strategy/action plans.
• Financial intermediaries will collaborate with forest
countries to develop investment frameworks and
governance mechanisms to ensure that sovereign
priorities for the use of proceeds are met, and
appropriate consultation with stakeholders is
undertaken.
• Under the LEAF Coalition, corporate ER purchases or
payments made are explicitly additional to, and not
a substitute for, reducing their own emissions.
• All members that join the Coalition have committed
to ambitious cuts in their own emissions in line with
science-based emission reduction targets and
aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner.
• Participating companies commit to science-based
targets (SBTi) or equivalent quantified and
independently verified decarbonization targets,
consistent with limiting warming in line with the
long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement,
with no or limited overshoot, and to mid-century net
zero targets covering all three scopes.
• Governments participating in LEAF have an NDC that
represents their highest possible ambition, and
aligns with clear and credible pathways towards net
zero emissions, and commit to establish a 2050
Long-Term Strategy to implement this global net
zero goal.
• Purchasing ERs from tropical and subtropical forests
will not substitute delivering on these targets.
• Corporate payments for ERs under the LEAF
Coalition enhance corporate climate ambitions by
being additional to the companies' own efforts.
• Participating companies will regularly report on their
greenhouse gas emissions and any use of
purchased ERs.

Innovative corporate engagement

Participating companies believe the LEAF Coalition will The LEAF Coalition includes The LEAF Coalition call for
positively influence voluntary corporate climate actions, several large buyers that proposals represents the
given the high integrity of the ART/TREES standard, and have not previously largest single private-
the opportunity LEAF provides for large-scale payments supported large-scale action sector demand signal for
to support effective solutions to deforestation at the to reduce emissions from ERs from forests in history.
national or large subnational scale. forests.

Price
The LEAF Coalition offers an initial
price of 10 USD/tonne for ART-
certified ERs. This is nearly 2.5 times
the average rate for tropical forest
ERs in voluntary carbon markets.
Average price for 2019 forestry and
land use credits across all sectors
$4.3 (Ecosystem Marketplace)
To allow for predictable pricing within the
2022-26 period, sovereign contributors to
LEAF may provide a floor price. This
mechanism will enable price discovery by
allowing forest countries to instead sell
the portion of their ERs pre-committed to
sovereign contributors to another buyer
at a higher price if an acceptable offer is
made.
It is the view of Coalition partners
that the initial offer of 10 USD/ton
with flexibility for price discovery
reflects an innovative public-private
approach to increasing the level of
predictability and compensation
provided for countries that protect
their tropical and subtropical
forests.

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