Carbon projects can have significant environmental and social impacts, both positive and negative. At Calyx Global, we assess projects through our Environmental and Social Risk (ESR) screenings. These screenings give buyers a more holistic picture of quality for credits they’re purchasing or projects they’re investing in – beyond greenhouse gas (GHG) integrity and UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) impact. 

While most standards include safeguard requirements to mitigate environmental and social risks, their scope and rigor vary widely across carbon crediting programs. No single standard currently offers a comprehensive assessment aligned with international best practices (see our blog post on Standards coverage). This is where our ESR screenings provide critical value – applying a consistent, project-level evaluation grounded in global best practices. Our approach identifies key risks and evaluates the measures in place to manage them. We then organize these risks into clear categories to offer buyers and investors a more nuanced understanding of a project’s safeguard performance.

Key areas of evaluation

Our ESR screenings include ten Environmental and Social Safeguard (ESS) areas, grouped into three main categories. This provides a comprehensive assessment of carbon projects from an environmental, governance and social perspective.

Environmental

Calyx Global’s Environmental safeguards category assesses how projects maintain biodiversity and efficiently utilize natural resources. We break this category into two key areas:

• Biodiversity & sustainability assesses the protection of natural habitats, endangered species and sustainable use of living natural resources.
• Our Resource efficiency assessment focuses on the responsible use of non-living natural resources, such as water and energy and the projects’ efforts to manage pollutants and waste. 

Governance

The Governance category includes key areas that assess projects’ systems for managing stakeholder participation and benefit sharing.

• The Transparency & engagement assessment helps determine how project information, risks and benefits are communicated to stakeholders. We pay special attention to whether marginalized and vulnerable groups have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making processes. This area also includes an evaluation of grievance mechanisms for workers and affected communities.
• The Benefit sharing area evaluates whether a benefit-sharing mechanism is in place and the extent to which it was established through a participatory process. This safeguard area reviews how financial and non-financial benefits are distributed, especially to local communities and Indigenous Peoples involved in or affected by emission reduction activities.

Social

The Social safeguard category includes a project’s effect on the surrounding community, Indigenous Peoples and their cultural heritage.

• Community health & safety assesses whether the project ensures the safety and security of communities throughout the project lifecycle.
• The Calyx Global Cultural heritage assessment evaluates the project’s measures to identify and protect areas of cultural significance.
• Gender equality assesses gender inclusivity and risks of exacerbating gender-based inequalities.
• Human rights & IPLC examines land rights, discrimination, Free, Prior and Informed Consent and measures to ensure Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ cultural and traditional values are respected [1].
• Worker rights & conditions assesses the dignity and rights of all workers involved.
• Land rights & resettlement evaluates the risk of community displacement and the project’s impact on land rights.

Our screening process

There are four elements to our ESR screening process, plus an additional option for an enhanced version upon request.

1. Desk review: Our screening process begins with a comprehensive analysis of project documentation, such as project design documents and verification reports from carbon crediting registries. We also tap academic papers, reports and media articles for additional context.
2. Risk categorization: Based on potential impact and likelihood, all identified risks are categorized into low, moderate, high or critical categories.
3. Reporting: Results are compiled into a risk report. This summary presents the identified risks, context and identified management or mitigation measures alongside an overall risk level for each safeguard area.
4. Project developer engagement: Publicly undisclosed data and insights on mitigation measures, strategies and operational details are gathered from project developers through a structured interview process. We inform project developers on the scope of the ESR screening and the types of information needed for a comprehensive evaluation.
5. Enhanced stakeholder engagement: An in-depth screening that incorporates additional data from stakeholder interviews and consultations is available. This screening provides additional nuanced understanding of risks and is particularly useful for projects with higher complexity or significant community impacts.

Future outlook

As the voluntary carbon market continues to mature and safeguards reporting becomes more standardized, we anticipate transitioning from screenings to offering ESR ratings. This will build on the strong foundation of our current screenings, which already provide a robust, structured and comparative high-level risk assessment based on available data. Looking ahead, future assessments may incorporate additional fieldwork and quantitative measurements to deepen our insights, enabling even more informed decision-making.

Interested in learning more or requesting an assessment? Contact us to discuss your project’s risk profile.

Additional ESR resources:

How carbon credit standards address safeguards

Five takeaways from our webinar – The third pillar of carbon credit quality: Safeguards

Five safeguard areas carbon-crediting programs can improve

On-demand webinar – The third pillar of carbon credit quality: Safeguards

What are safeguards and why they matter for your carbon credits

[1] Under Free, Prior and Informed consent, communities must be given the opportunity to consent to project activities without undue influence; before project design and implementation; and with clear, accessible and accurate information, including project scope, duration, potential benefits and risks.