Nova Community Greening Standard

Pre-release. This site describes standard version 0.7.0-dev, which is in development and may change before version 1.0.0.

The Nova Community Greening Standard says how community tree planting is done well: where trees may go, how every tree is recorded and followed up, and who checks the records. It also says what a project may claim afterwards, and from when.

The project journey

A project version starts at registration and ends at close-out. In between, every site follows its own path, and the trees at one site can end in different strata. Select a step to see what it asks for.

%% The project journey (D-13.3), drawn by hand. Each workflow node is mapped to
%% its workflow IRI below; the generator fails if a mapped workflow is missing.
%% workflow registration https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/registration
%% workflow siteAssessment https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/site-assessment
%% workflow handover https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/handover
%% workflow planting https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/planting
%% workflow education https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/education
%% workflow stewardship https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/stewardship
%% workflow monitoring https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/monitoring-verification
%% workflow closeOut https://nova.org.za/ncgs/workflows/close-out
flowchart TB
    registration["Registration"]
    subgraph site["At every site"]
        direction TB
        siteAssessment["Site assessment"]
        withheld(["Withheld, verified"])
        handover["Delivery"]
        deliveredOnly(["Delivered only"])
        planting["Planting"]
        unmonitored(["Planted, not monitored"])
        monitoring["Monitoring and verification"]
        monitored(["Planted and monitored"])
        education["Education"]
        stewardship["Stewardship"]
        siteAssessment --> withheld
        siteAssessment --> handover
        handover --> deliveredOnly
        handover --> planting
        planting --> unmonitored
        planting --> monitoring
        monitoring --> monitored
        planting -.- education
        planting -.- stewardship
    end
    closeOut["Close-out"]
    registration --> siteAssessment
    withheld --> closeOut
    deliveredOnly --> closeOut
    unmonitored --> closeOut
    monitored --> closeOut
    click registration "workflows/registration.html"
    click siteAssessment "workflows/site-assessment.html"
    click handover "workflows/handover.html"
    click planting "workflows/planting.html"
    click education "workflows/education.html"
    click stewardship "workflows/stewardship.html"
    click monitoring "workflows/monitoring-verification.html"
    click closeOut "workflows/close-out.html"

  1. Registration, once per project version.
  2. At every site:
    1. Site assessment. The site ends withheld, verified, or goes on to delivery.
    2. Delivery. Trees delivered only end here; trees for planting go on.
    3. Planting. Planted trees are either not monitored, or go on to monitoring.
    4. Monitoring and verification, at the declared horizons.
  3. Close-out, once per project version.

What you can claim, and when

What a project may claim about a tree depends on two things: its stratum, which says whether it was only delivered, planted, or planted and monitored, and the horizon at which it was observed. A delivered-only tree supports output claims only (rule 3). Planted with monitoring is the only stratum that can support outcome claims such as survival (definition). An observation at a horizon the monitoring period does not reach is kept but marked unscheduled (check), and an unscheduled observation is reported separately and never counted in a rate (definition).

An invented example. A project delivers 100 trees to households, plants 200 at schools without monitoring, and plants another 100 at clinics with a monitoring period that reaches T2. It can report the trees it delivered and the 300 it planted. It can report survival at T2 for the 100 monitored trees only. It cannot report survival at one year: its monitoring period does not reach T3, so a tree observed at one year is an unscheduled observation, reported separately (definition).

The table of what can be claimed in each stratum at each horizon is on the Indicators overview, beside every indicator grouped from inputs to impact.

Why it is credible

  • A site left unplanted can be the right result. 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, which is one of its terminal states alongside a planting plan that may proceed (check).
  • Monitored trees are observed one by one. 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).
  • The person who checks is qualified and is not the person who did the work. A safeguard reviewer is qualified in grassland and wetland ecology and is not the assessor (check). A verification reviewer is qualified for the applied methodology and is not the observer (check). A project design’s validation reviewer is not its author (check).
  • The standard states what was done, not what it was worth. At close-out, Independent Impact issues a conformance statement for the project version, naming the horizons whose monitoring visits were verified; it carries no indicator value (check).

Start here

The words the standard uses, and the words it avoids, are in the Glossary.

Many of the standard’s field measures and indicators draw on KIA-Adapt, a Nova Institute project sponsored by Kerk in Actie.

This page explains the standard and does not decide conformance: only the released corpus does. It describes standard version 0.7.0-dev.