Plan Vivo Standard
The Plan Vivo Standard was born with the objective of supporting the peasants of Chiapas (Mexico), through actions of restoration, reforestation and management of their territories, allowing them to diversify their livelihoods. The Plan Vivo Foundation has used its ideology and network of stakeholders to evolve towards a system that enables environmental and social benefits to be provided to communities around the world.
The Plan Vivo Foundation is an organization registered in Scotland, which took over the management of the System of the same name. In 2004, the first version of the Standard was created, detailing the requirements of the projects developed under this Standard.
Plan Vivo is internationally recognized as the leading Voluntary Carbon Market Standard for community land use projects and support for small communities. Plan Vivo's certification demonstrates that a project is sustainable in the long term, that benefits people's livelihoods and provides climate benefits.
The Plan Vivo Standard seeks equitable participation, so it is necessary that registered projects capture carbon from the atmosphere and that the benefits can be claimed by projects as Plan Vivo Certificates, which sell these certificates to help finance their operations and attract new participants. 60% of the income from the sale of Plan Vivo Certificates goes to direct payment to participating communities and smallholders.
The principles of Plan Vivo Standard are:
1.- Alleviate poverty by offering sustainable livelihoods to communities whose environments have been degraded.
2.- Restore and protect the environment, to help protect communities from facing climate change and provide a variety of sustainable development benefits.
3.- Strengthening of local capacity through the transfer of knowledge, skills and resources to developing countries.