Reading guide for funders
This guide says what you receive from a project run under the standard, what it can claim, and why you can rely on it.
What you receive
At close-out, Independent Impact issues a conformance statement for the project version. It names the standard version the project version was validated against and the horizons whose monitoring visits were verified, and it carries no indicator value (check). It is a statement about process, not a certificate of impact. The substance is the approved observations behind it, which your report draws on.
What can be claimed, and from when
A claim depends on what happened to each tree and on how long after planting it was observed. Trees that were only delivered support output claims only (rule 3). Planted with monitoring is the only stratum that can support outcome claims such as survival (definition). An observation the plan did not schedule, such as one at a horizon beyond the monitoring period, is kept and reported separately as unscheduled, and never counted in a rate (definition). If you want to hear about survival at one year, the monitoring period has to reach one year.
An invented example: a project delivers 100 trees, plants 200 without monitoring, and plants 100 with a monitoring period that reaches T2. It reports the trees it delivered, the 300 it planted, and survival at T2 for the 100 monitored trees. It cannot report survival at one year.
The full table is on What can be claimed.
Why you can rely on it
- Trees are planted only where the site’s latest assessment determination is suitable or suitable with conditions (check). An assessment can end in withheld, verified, one of its terminal states (check).
- A monitoring visit records one observation per tree it reaches, with evidence; a tree it does not reach is recorded as unobserved, never as dead (step).
- A verification reviewer is qualified for the applied methodology and is not the observer (check). A safeguard reviewer is qualified in grassland and wetland ecology and is not the assessor (check).
Where to look next
- The project journey, from registration to close-out.
- The Glossary, so that reports use the standard’s terms.
Many of the standard’s field measures and indicators draw on KIA-Adapt, a Nova Institute project sponsored by Kerk in Actie.