Verra Registers Second Credit Issuance For European Afforestation Project
Verra’s public registry shows a second verification and credit issuance for Ecobase’s pan-European afforestation, reforestation and revegetation project, covering two vintages and adding to the volume of nature-based removal credits available from the scheme, registered under the Verified Carbon Standard as project VCS 3677.
The issuance covers the 2023 and 2024 vintages, with 12,140 verified carbon units issued for 2023 and 13,268 for 2024, bringing the combined total for this issuance to 25,408 units. According to the registry, the credits were generated from eligible project areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, forming part of Ecobase’s wider 5,853-hectare enrolled project area, within a scheme that spans 24 European countries in total.
The project became the first pan-European afforestation and reforestation scheme to achieve full Verra registration, and uses the CDM AR-ACM0003 methodology. Ecobase, an Estonian-based forestry carbon developer founded in 2021, works with landowners across Europe to plant and restore native forests on degraded and agricultural land, generating verified carbon units that allow landowners to retain credit ownership while earning income from forest carbon finance. The registry lists the project’s coverage as continuing to expand, with more than 230,000 hectares of project area enrolled to date.
This issuance follows the project’s first credit issuance at the end of 2024, when initial volumes were sold to carbon credit management firm Rubicon Carbon. Verra’s registry separately shows that Ecobase has registered a second scheme, an Improved Forest Management project spanning roughly 570,000 hectares across Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, listed as VCS 5315, which is expected to deliver an initial issuance of between 200,000 and 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by the end of 2026.
The issuance adds to a limited pool of European-origin nature-based removal credits, at a time when European buyers account for a large share of global voluntary carbon market demand while the continent supplies a comparatively small proportion of global credit volumes, according to industry data cited by market participants. The credits are tracked publicly through Verra’s registry, which records issuance, ownership and retirement status for all registered projects under the Verified Carbon Standard.
