On Wednesday, November 5, 2025, the Livelihoods Rendez-vous brought together around 200 participants, both in Paris and online, to explore how the Voluntary Carbon Market can truly serve people and the planet. The event underscored a shared conviction: when dialogue replaces dogma, meaningful collaboration becomes possible.
The evening emphasized that while the Voluntary Carbon Market has unlocked billions in private finance, its rising complexity risks excluding smallholder and family farmers, who are indispensable to climate action and produce up to one-third of the world’s food.
We heard from diverse leading voices shaping climate, nature, and community impact:
- Bernard Giraud, President and Co-Founder of Livelihoods, opened with our new Position Paper overview.
- Panel 1 on field insights featured Ajanta Dey of the Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS) in India, who restored 5,000 hectares of mangroves benefiting 250,000 people; Margaret Kim, Chief Executive Officer of Gold Standard, on advancing rigorous and scalable carbon standards; Pierre-Alexandre Bapst, Chief Sustainability Officer of Hermès, offering an investor perspective; and Gilles Moynot, Head of Climate at Livelihoods, sharing co-created, locally grounded approaches.
- Panel 2 on scalable investment included Paloma Adams Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Airlink and former USAID Deputy Administrator; Fidèle Bingwa, Permanent Secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Environment; Christian Didier, Partner at Deloitte Climate and Sustainability; Eric Soubeiran, Chief Executive Officer of Livelihoods, and Gilles Vermot-Desroches, Chief Citizenship Officer of Schneider Electric, exploring approaches to scale finance while rewarding social and environmental co-benefits.
- Isabelle Grosmaitre, Founder of Goodness&Co, moderated the discussions, linking field realities with strategic vision.
Watch the Event Recording:
The Core Message: Integrity must be our compass, inclusion our engine
The central paradox we addressed, underscored by the launch of our new Position Paper, is that integrity without pragmatism risks becoming integrity without impact.
The Voluntary Carbon Market is a means, not an end, serving as a vehicle to channel private finance towards thriving ecosystems and resilient livelihoods.
The Position Paper outlines urgent actions to make the Voluntary Carbon Market work for rural communities:
1. Aligning rules with field reality (permanence)
Current permanence rules requiring 30-100 years clash with local realities, such as the average life expectancy of smallholder farmers (e.g., 55-60 years in parts of Africa). We propose aligning the crediting period with the actual timeframe for change, calling for a maximum of 20 years. Furthermore, the Voluntary Carbon Market must recognize the specificity of these projects by developing a dedicated certification pathway for smallholder-led nature-based projects.
2. Implementing solidarity mechanisms
Projects involving smallholder-led nature-based solutions often face additional risk adjustments (sometimes up to 25% non-permanence buffer). We call for the removal of these additional risk adjustments and the collective management of inherent nature-based solution risks through the existing buffer pool mechanism. This creates “real solidarity” and encourages investment in projects that deliver significant social, economic, and environmental co-benefits.
3. Developing fit for purpose Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification processes, adapted to cultural realities
Developing fit for purpose Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification processes, adapted to cultural realities: The current weight of reporting has become disproportionate. Complex Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification processes can consume 15-20% of project budgets and force project managers to spend up to 30% of their time on documentation instead of on-the-ground implementation. We ask standards to formalize simplified, field-adapted Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification processes and co-invest in digital tools to ease reporting, thus directing investment to field action rather than remunerating intermediaries.
4. Recognizing local governance (land tenure)
We must adapt standards to socio-cultural realities. Imposing a narrow, Western-centric view of land rights by requiring formal certificates is counterproductive. Instead, Voluntary Carbon Market operators must recognize and integrate customary land rights systems as legitimate forms of land governance to guarantee smallholder participation.
5. Ensuring inclusive governance and movement
The current governance of the Voluntary Carbon Market standards is largely top-down and expert-driven. To ensure rules reflect practical feasibility, we demand that standards development be led by joint commissions composed equally of field practitioners and standard-setters/policymakers. Fundamentally, we must prioritize pragmatism over perfection, valuing iteration and learning to keep the system in motion, because waiting for perfect evidence risks paralysis.
6. Designing supportive fiscal frameworks
Governments must be cautious that imposing taxes or levies on carbon projects, though clear in intent, may inadvertently reduce the financial viability of long-term nature-based initiatives. We advise Governments to establish transparent, predictable, and incentive-based regulatory frameworks that reward contribution to Nationally Determined Contributions and community welfare, rather than taxing results.
The real success of this market will not be measured in the tons it counts, but in the trust it builds and the communities it strengthens. We look forward to translating these ideas into action, taking this Position Paper to standard bodies, governments, and COP30 in Belém.
Resources and Next Steps
We encourage you to review the materials and continue this crucial dialogue:
- Full Position Paper: Read our detailed proposals for unlocking the Voluntary Carbon Market’s real potential.
- Position Paper Executive Summary: An easy-to-read, easy-to-share overview of our urgent call to reconcile integrity and inclusion.