High-integrity has been a bit of a buzzword in the voluntary carbon market of late and there's good reason why this theme keeps coming up. Here, we take you through what integrity means for us and how we approach it in our work.
For Nakau, integrity is way more than a buzzword — it has a place at every stage of a carbon project. It means the rights and livelihoods of Indigenous people are supported and strengthened, and their position as land and carbon-rights holders is upheld. It also means ecosystems within project areas are protected and restored. And the emission reductions in credits are real (additional) and long-lived (permanent).
Carbon and nature projects are the heart of our work at Nakau. But the reason we do this work in the first place is to contribute to real solutions to our global climate crisis by enabling Indigenous communities to continue to protect and restore the amazing ecosystems under their care. There are lots of ways we should all help solve the climate crisis, and keeping more Pacific rainforests healthy and absorbing as much CO2 as possible is one of them.
Projects that use the Nakau Methodology are certified by Plan Vivo, the leading international standard for community-led payment for ecosystem services (PES) projects. This guarantees projects and carbon credits meet the standards and strict requirements on transparency, inclusiveness, fair benefits and environmental integrity.
Nakau is made up of community development practitioners, ecologists and forest ecosystem specialists, and a social justice lens and human rights framework informs our work. We commit to a long-term engagement with partner communities to make sure there are many environmental, social and cultural benefits that result from carbon and nature projects aside from financial benefits.
Forest carbon projects as a nature-based solution is about so much more than carbon credits. The projects provide opportunities for customary landowners and their communities for 30 years. Working directly with the people who rely on forests and other ecosystems for their livelihood means carbon credit revenue is distributed fairly and that it directly addresses poverty as a driver of deforestation.
Credits generated by projects that use the Nakau Methodology are of high value: they are priced to reflect the value of the benefits generated for people and nature, and to reflect conservation and stewardship led by Indigenous communities.
When a company buys a carbon credit supplied through Nakau, they are really paying for the time, labour and knowledge invested by customary landowners in protecting a forest or any other ecosystem. They are giving value to what is takes for people to care for, support and restore nature.
Pricing to reflect this work provides companies who buy credits with the certainty their credits are real and long-lasting. It also provides a price signal to companies to use these credits in addition to emissions reductions, not instead of them.
We agree carbon credit projects will not solve the climate crisis on their own. It's time to stop digging up and burning coal and gas, and we do not support carbon credits to be used as a way around polluting but welcome better regulation to stop this happening.
We work with enterprises who use credits to cover residual emissions they cannot avoid or that are close to their supply chain. Our customers purchase credits voluntarily, and not as part of a compliance scheme so they have no obligation to offset.
Carbon and nature projects have a place among the suite of solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. For Indigenous landowners and our partners, conservation really matters — but it should also be funded.
We recognise there are uncertainties when quantifying emission reductions in avoided deforestation or forest degradation projects due to the counterfactual nature of baseline scenarios. It's why we avoid overestimating carbon credit volumes through best practice, representative data and realistic yet conservative assumptions.
Forest areas that are eligible for carbon crediting include only the net forest area which would be impacted by the baseline activities. Through careful analysis and land-use planning, we exclude all areas that would likely not be eligible due to government regulations, customary law, topography, access restrictions or other factors.
All our carbon accounting systems are based on accurate forest biomass data collected through forest inventories in our project sites. Some parameters cannot be based on site-specific data because their assessment requires lengthy or costly research that would exceed the scope of our project work. In these cases, we build on robust and conservative reference values provided by good practice guidance and scientific literature. All our assumptions, equations and sources are made transparent and are checked by independent auditors during project verifications.
Forest cover and carbon stocks are monitored annually through field monitoring and remote sensing. Forest Rangers measure and report any potential areas of forest loss immediately and 20% of the net carbon certificates are set aside into a risk buffer that acts as insurance for reversal incidents and from which associated emissions are discounted.
The majority of income earned from carbon credit sales through Nakau goes to Indigenous landholders. Any profits made from Nakau’s share of sales income are used to grow the Nakau Programme and develop new projects. Profits are not used to pay our owner or any shareholders.
At least 80% of income from the sale of credits remains in the country where a project takes place. Communities use the credit income for much-needed community development, including water tanks, school fees, WASH facilities and small-business development.
Nakau uses a partnership model to establish and run carbon projects with local communities. The three groups involved in this partnership are:
When working with Nakau, the customary landowners and their community remain at the core of a carbon project. They retain control of the project, customary rights and the benefits.
We invest deeply in consultation and training with Indigenous communities before they decide to engage in a carbon project. All decision-making must be clear, transparent and controlled by the customary landowners and their community. To ensure this, we stick by a high FPIC Standard.
We also work within local customary culture as much as possible. We take time to sit, listen and make a project together that works with exisiting kastom and meets community needs. We always engage a local NGO partner in the process. Where existing customary processes support decision making or protecting forest areas, such as tabu protections, we incorporate these into our projects.
Credits produced are owned by landowners, not Nakau. We help sell them, but never take ownership of them.
The time needed to establish a forest carbon project varies depending on each location, the community and the governance systems we must work within. In all projects, we meet the community where they’re at and then create a pathway towards establishing a project from there.
In general, Nakau carbon projects:
You can read more about how we select a carbon project site, including how we consider kastom and culture.
Nakau is a social purpose company working with Indigenous communities to protect and restore nature. We have long-standing ties with Live & Learn, a not-for-profit NGO registered in Australia who work on environmental issues across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
© 2026 Nakau
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