Symbiosis consists of: 

• Action-oriented volume commitment - Commitment by members to sign long-term offtake agreements for a specific volume of credits by 2030 to spur the development of new projects.

• Unified quality criteria - A single, trusted quality standard for projects that count towards the Symbiosis volume commitment that pulls from the most current and rigorous science and data, builds on existing standards, informed by independent experts, and updated as science, data, and best practices evolve. 

• Joint RFP - Joint RFP(s) to simplify procurement for buyers and developers and help translate Symbiosis volume commitments into action.

• Market development - Project developer, investor, and other stakeholder engagement and education to grow the pipeline of projects and mobilize more capital.

Symbiosis will assess and choose which projects to progress through diligence based on the following aspects of the RFP submission: 

1. Project quality: alignment with Symbiosis’ Minimum Quality Criteria for the project type 

2. Ability to Execute: the developer’s ability to execute and deliver the expected carbon removal over the project lifetime 

3. Commercial proposal: price, volume, and other key commercial elements

Projects that successfully progress through diligence and are recommended by Symbiosis for offtake will ultimately enter into an agreement directly with individual coalition members that have selected the project.

Symbiosis is committed to be guided by the latest science, data and best practice, to take a conservative approach, to focus on certainty of climate impact and equitable engagement and outcomes for indigenous peoples and local communities, to rigorously monitor and evaluate whether projects are achieving their intended impact, and to transparently share lessons learned. Symbiosis developed overarching quality pillars and specific quality criteria for ARR projects, informed by independent experts from academia, NGOs, and industry, to guide its efforts. The Coalition intends to update these over time as the science, data, and best practice evolves. 

The ARR quality criteria build on the most conservative approaches currently available on the market today including the use of dynamic baselines, for example, to provide greater confidence around additionality. The criteria also include additional requirements, above and beyond what is included in most methodologies, around stakeholder engagement, financial transparency, and positive climate impact. For example, they require net positive impact on local communities (above and beyond many "do no harm" standards) as well as ongoing community consultations and impact monitoring throughout the project lifecycle.

All the most up-to-date information can be found on the Symbiosis website.

Our first project request for proposals (RFP) will be for reforestation and agroforestry projects that meet our Symbiosis ARR quality criteria. While we plan to expand to other project types in the future, we will not be accepting proposals for other project types at this time (including mangroves, soil carbon, and IFM).

The RFP will be open to projects in all geographies, with the exception of countries listed by the US State Department as Level 4: Do Not Travel. Projects must also meet the Symbiosis ARR quality criterion #2: “exist in ecoregions or biomes where forest cover is ecologically suitable and albedo effect does not negate net carbon removal benefits.” In addition, we will prioritize projects in regions with high potential for ecological restoration and biodiversity impact, and also take into consideration potential regulatory or geopolitical impacts on project risk and durability.

We expect that the organization applying to the RFP is the entity that will be able to contract with member buyers for the long-term offtake of carbon credits from the project.

We plan to source projects that are ready to secure commercial offtake that can help bring in upfront financing to the project. In general, we anticipate looking for projects that have completed at least a feasibility assessment and ideally also a draft or final PDD and pilot area planting, but have not yet secured financing for full project scale-up.

We expect that project applications have at least the following:

1. Clear project boundary 

2. Baselining data (plot locations and selection procedure, at least in draft form)

3. Detailed carbon removal projections

4. Implementation plan 

5. Financial model and budget 

6. Stakeholder engagement and benefit-sharing plans

7. Feasibility study and/or PDD (PDD may be in draft form)

8. Impact assessment, monitoring, and MRV plan for carbon, ecological, community, and socioeconomic impacts over the full project lifetime

9. If possible, a long-term ecosystem or forest management plan detailing the key strategies and activities that ensure the long-term durability of the project

Stay tuned for additional information on what is expected to be in each of these documents.

We do not have firm guidelines for minimum or maximum project size and will evaluate project size in the context of the landscape in which the project is implemented (recognizing that larger projects are not always better from an ecological standpoint). However, given the cost of diligence and contracting, we anticipate prioritizing projects with potential offtake of at least 500,000 tonnes of carbon removal over 10 years at their full-scale expansion potential. We will also consider smaller projects with particularly unique and impactful ecological, biodiversity, or social benefits.

You do not need to be a VM0047 project with ABACUS and CCB labels to apply. We require alignment or consistency with the principles of Verra’s VM0047, ABACUS, and CCB labels, but this consistency can be demonstrated without certification through Verra. We will evaluate and consider projects from reforestation / restoration methodologies from standards that have at minimum applied for acceptance under Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principle (CCP) assessment framework. 

Methodologies from standards that have either submitted to or been approved by the ICVCM as of the publishing of this FAQ include the following:

• Verra’s VM0047

• ABACUS label

• Gold Standard AR

• American Carbon Registry, AR of Degraded Lands

• Climate Action Reserve

• Isometric, Reforestation

• Ecosystem Restoration Standard, M001

• Plan Vivo’s P001

• Cercabono

We will continue to update this list to reflect the latest submissions to ICVCM for consideration. Note that the standard must be approved by the ICVCM ahead of the Symbiosis contracting stage. 

Keep in mind that adherence to one of these methodologies alone is not sufficient to qualify for the Symbiosis Coalition offtake. Successful projects need to meet the Symbiosis quality criteria which go above and beyond these standards. 

We recognize that reforestation and restoration activities can exist in landscapes where multiple project activities are taking place, including avoided deforestation projects. As of now, we expect to focus on ARR-only methodologies, including those that allow conservation activities to ensure forest growth. We may consider developing guidance for the removals components of projects under REDD+ or IFM methodologies in the future.

No, you don’t need to have project financing ready to deploy ahead of applying to the RFP. However, we recommend that you begin conversations with investors early in the process so that you have a sense of potential financing sources and cost of capital as part of your RFP submission. We plan to share, as a resource for developers and the public, a list of investors who are interested in financing Symbiosis projects.

We plan to publish offtake guidance along with the RFP to give an indication of the offtake structure that we are looking for. Generally speaking, contracts will be a forward commitment to pay for tonnes of carbon removal delivered at a future date at a specified price. The minimum contract term length will be 10 years (e.g. 2025 to 2035 for a contract signed in 2025), with the possibility for longer contracts on a case-by-case basis. Developers may submit pricing proposals at different offtake lengths as part of the RFP process.

No, we do not have a specific price per tonne target. Various factors drive price, including geography, land strategy, financing costs, and type of restoration, among others. However, we recognize that a more conservative approach to carbon accounting paired with additional social and ecological requirements may result in a higher price per tonne. Delivering tonnes on a pay-on-delivery basis also will require outside financing, which will add to project costs. Symbiosis will seek transparency into the key drivers of cost to understand why a project offtake is priced the way that it is, and will aim to pay what it takes to ensure that our minimum quality criteria are met and the project has sufficient resources to successfully implement the project, reduce reversal risk, and also share benefits/upside with landowners and/or local communities.

No, Symbiosis will not provide direct project financing for carbon projects. We intend to help developers secure long-term offtake agreements with Symbiosis members so that it’s easier for developers to find investors willing to deploy capital into their projects. Where possible, we will aim to facilitate introductions to relevant investors who may be able to finance nature-based removal projects and/or advisors who may be able to help with financial modeling and offtake structuring. 

The reason that Symbiosis is focused on pay-on-delivery offtake, rather than pre-purchase, is to mobilize the much larger pools of institutional capital that are needed to scale up nature restoration over the long term. While we may consider a small amount of pre-purchase on a case by case basis (and developers will have the option to submit pricing proposals with this prepayment option), we anticipate that the majority of offtakes from the Symbiosis RFP will be pay-on-delivery offtake.

Symbiosis RFPs are meant to augment members’ existing efforts to achieve large-scale decarbonization and removal and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but not to replace those efforts. Members may count credits from the Symbiosis RFP and from outside the Symbiosis RFP towards their Symbiosis volume commitment as long as those credits meet the Symbiosis quality criteria. Developers are encouraged to continue ongoing project conversations with Symbiosis member buyers ahead of the RFP launch. 

If your project makes it through the first stage of Symbiosis diligence and passes into full diligence, you will be asked to sign an exclusivity agreement for the credits under consideration by Symbiosis for the term of diligence/negotiations, as is standard in such contexts.

We aim to launch the first Symbiosis RFP on reforestation and agroforestry by the end of 2024 (currently anticipating early-mid December), with a priority deadline in late January. If you submit by the priority deadline, your project will be guaranteed to be reviewed by the Symbiosis team. We will continue to accept submissions on a rolling basis following this deadline but cannot guarantee that they will be reviewed. Projects will go through three stages: 

1. Preliminary screening - to assess completeness, high-level eligibility, and prioritization for intermediate diligence

2. Intermediate diligence - to assess alignment with the Symbiosis quality criteria, prioritize top projects for full diligence, and surface key risk areas for further diligence

3. Full diligence - to conduct a full assessment of alignment with the Symbiosis quality criteria and analysis of project risks ahead of contracting, including a site visit

The exact timeline for each stage will vary depending on the project and when the submission is received, but we plan to share updates throughout the process so that project developers have a sense of the timeline for their specific project. 

Symbiosis will lead one central diligence process on behalf of member organizations that are purchasing via the RFP process. Project developers will not need to undergo additional diligence by members at the end of the Symbiosis diligence process.

• Fill out our developer interest form to ensure you’re on our mailing list

• Familiarize yourself with our ARR Quality Criteria 

• Join our webinar series (invites to come!) 

• Stay tuned for other additional written guidance and other potential Q&A opportunities

Symbiosis expects to launch the Mangroves RFP sometime in 2025. The timing for procurement of other project types is still to be determined and likely to launch in 2026+. You can register your interest to work with Symbiosis Coalition on mangroves and other project types and join our list to receive information about future RFPs via this form.

We plan to share more details about the review process, including the potential for resubmissions.

Please reach out to developers@symbiosiscoalition.org with your question and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Yes! Symbiosis Coalition is open to carbon credit buyers from different industries and geographies who retire credits on their own behalf and predominantly play a role as an end buyer in the carbon market ecosystem. 

Our current membership criteria are: 

• Publicly commit to science-based, quantified, and independently verified decarbonization targets by 2050, consistent with limiting warming in line with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

• Publicly report a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. 

• Are willing to commit to purchase high-quality, nature-based carbon removals that meet the Symbiosis Quality Criteria and are willing to pay the true cost for those removals.

• Are willing to sign long-term forward agreements.

• Are willing to transparently share lessons learned through participation in Symbiosis.

• Are willing to learn and share best practices with other stakeholders.

We understand that different buyers are willing to sign different contract lengths. In order to be catalytic for the market and attract follow-on financing, we currently expect buyers who join Symbiosis to be open to signing 10-year contracts (e.g. 2025-2035 for a contract signed in 2025) with the option to sign longer-term contracts on a project by project basis. However, we may be able to accommodate members signing shorter-term offtakes and can work with prospective members around their requirements for delivery timing as needed.

Yes, members have programs and commitments that go beyond Symbiosis Coalition. In addition, members can count credits procured from outside Symbiosis towards their volume commitments in addition to credits procured via the Symbiosis RFP as long as any externally-sourced credits meet the Symbiosis quality criteria.

Email us at buyers@symbiosiscoalition.org to learn more about how to join!