International Day of Forests 2023: All Spanish projects registered in MITECO are now in the Reforestum VCM Navigator

As a second milestone in its VCM Navigator roadmap, Reforestum has incorporated all public information on afforestation projects certified as carbon removal projects into the Spanish Ministry of Environment (MITECO) registry to commemorate the International Day of Forests 2023. This is an important step for this new product, which is set to be the portal to comprehensively view and understand Voluntary Carbon Markets.

Noemi Sánchez Hernández · Corporate Climate Solutions · Mar 2023

Early this year Reforestum launched a beta version of a new product that aims to democratize and provide radical transparency to Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM): the VCM Navigator.

The VCM navigator is set out to be the portal to access all the information from the main VCM registries so that anyone can obtain up-to-date and detailed data on all the VCM projects, along with traceability of corporate climate efforts and validation of impact. For the first version of the VCM Navigator, the Spanish startup started with the Verra VCS registry, as it represents the vast majority of VCM carbon credits, which involved mapping over 150 million VCUs retired and linking them to over 2,250 organisations.

Today Reforestum wants to commemorate the International Day of Forests by announcing the second release of the VCM Navigator: it now includes the 402 afforestation projects certified as carbon removal projects by the Oficina Española de Cambio Climático (OECC) belonging to the Spanish Ministry of Environment (known as MITECO - Ministerio de transición ecológica y reto demográfico) so far, as well as their corresponding 372 transactions and 169 organisations that have supported them.

“As a Spanish company, it is crucial for us to open the window to public information on the afforestation projects developed in Spain and recognised by the MITECO registry”, explains Diego Sanz Prieto, CEO and founder of Reforestum, “which is why it has been the second registry on our roadmap. We expect to onboard the Gold Standard projects in the upcoming weeks”.

In addition to mapping out the MITECO registry information, Reforestum has also been working on improving the usability of the VCM Navigator as a way to democratize access to the information contained on VCM registries and pave the way for more transparency and better metrics shared by VCM participants at different levels.

In parallel, Reforestum intends to collaborate together and work closely with national and international registries and initiatives with the objective of delivering information of the highest possible quality on VCM projects. Besides, it is consulting with different VCM participants to gain an in-depth understanding of their greatest challenges to jointly develop a robust platform that helps solve the issues the market is facing in a context of increased scrutiny and bad press on offset projects and particularly on programmes such as REDD+.

As a Spanish company, it is crucial for us to open the window to public information on the afforestation projects developed in Spain and recognised by the MITECO registry, which is why it has been the second registry on our roadmap.

Diego Sanz PrietoCEO and Founder at Reforestum

By synchronizing its platform with VCM registries as a starting point and enabling VCM participants to enrich information about projects using trusted sources of data, the Reforestum platform aims to build the digital infrastructure needed for a more transparent and trustworthy VCM, which is essential for channelling private investment in the protection and regeneration of the world's forests.

And this infrastructure is ultimately at the heart of what Reforestum is focused on developing: a set of tools for VCM contributors and supply side actors including project developers to confidently manage and disclose their offset portfolio, making it easy for them to minimise risks and meet their regulatory and reporting requirements.

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Noemi Sánchez Hernández

Community Engagement Officer

I am an enthusiastic engineer with the strong purpose of impacting positively on the environment and society. With a wide background in consultancy and customer and employee experience management, I build engaged communities through listening, communication, engagement, collaboration, empowerment and trust.