Women Organizing for Change in
Agriculture & Natural Resource
Management
Women’s Carbon Standard (WCS)
Version: April 2013
Version: April 2013
Executive Summary
The Women’s Carbon Standard (WCS) is a set of project design and implementation
requirements that complement existing compliance or voluntary carbon standards. The
WCS specifically includes measures to integrate and measure women’s empowerment
and participation in carbon mitigation projects. The WCS quantifies beneficial outcomes
for women, their families and communities.
WOCAN’s objective is to improve the lives of women in developing economies by
incentivizing investments in carbon projects that incorporate standards of women’s
empowerment into the project development cycle. WOCAN’s perception is that
women’s empowerment can contribute to sustainable development and poverty
alleviation. The power of global carbon markets can be engaged to advance these
goals.
WOCAN believes that the use of this standard, the Women’s Carbon Standard, to
promote empowerment will ultimately change business as usual in the global carbon
markets. Just as the Fair Trade label has revolutionized consumer buying habits,
WOCAN sees the potential to drive investments to projects that support women’s
empowerment. When the livelihoods of women improve, broader economic, social, and
environmental improvements follow.
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Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... ii
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Benefits of Using the Women’s Carbon Standard (WCS) .......................................... 2
Who Should Use the WCS ............................................................................................ 2
How is the Women’s Carbon Standard Administered................................................ 4
Implementing the Women’s Carbon Standard ............................................................ 4
Applicability ..................................................................................................................... 4
Project Coordination ........................................................................................................ 4
Requirements ................................................................................................................ 5
The following paragraphs provide a brief description of each of the domains and examples of criteria
to be measured. Additional details and direction are available in the Program Guide. ......................... 5
Income and Assets ................................................................................................................................ 5
Time ....................................................................................................................................................... 6
Education and Knowledge ..................................................................................................................... 6
Leadership ............................................................................................................................................. 6
Food Security ......................................................................................................................................... 7
Health ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Validation/verification ...................................................................................................... 7
Definitions ...................................................................................................................... 8
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Introduction
WOCAN (Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource
Management) builds women’s leadership in agriculture and natural resource
management through organizational and individual transformation. WOCAN’s vision is
of a world where gender equality has been achieved within agriculture and natural
resource management organizations, policies, programs and markets, achieving food
security and sustainable development.
Natural resource systems and local economies benefit when women are included and
empowered. An increasing number of governments and international organizations
understand the need to incorporate gender into climate change and food security
policies, programs and budgets; this is evidenced by increasing references to gender
and the need for gender equality in the UNFCCC texts. The decision text on the Green
Climate Fund also has strong references to gender. In many regions, women are the
primary food producers and natural resource managers, as well as market actors.
Working at the intersection of gender equality, women’s social and economic
empowerment, food security and climate change mitigation, WOCAN has developed the
Women’s Carbon Standard (WCS) as a means of making positive contributions to each
of these important issues. The WCS is protocol designed to be applied to carbon offset
projects in order to enhance the social and economic empowerment of women
associated with these projects.
One of WOCAN’s goals is to create additional value to these projects, through the
application of the WCS. The objective is to return profits from the sale of offsets back to
women and women’s groups, creating a sustainable circle of environmental restoration
and support for women’s economic and social empowerment.
WOCAN envisions clear, positive outcomes which would be measured according to
indicators of success, represented by measurable activities within six domains listed
below. The Program Guide document includes practical information for project design
and implementation.
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Income and Assets
Time
Education and Knowledge
Leadership
Food Security
Health
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Benefits of Using the Women’s Carbon Standard (WCS)
WOCAN believes that the use of the WCS to promote women’s empowerment will
ultimately improve women’s lives. Just as the Fair Trade label has revolutionized
consumer buying habits, WOCAN sees the potential to drive consumer awareness and
investment toward projects that institutionalize empowerment and improve the lives of
rural women, their families and communities.
WOCAN’s WCS espouses three principles:
1. WOCAN will challenge the prevailing public perception of women as members of
a vulnerable groups most affected by climate change, thus limiting their
opportunities to participate in the market. This will be done by showcasing their
roles as entrepreneurs, resource managers and leaders who engage with carbon
markets.
2. WOCAN will employ the WCS as a transparent, rigorous, and realistic
mechanism that can promote women’s empowerment using private sector
market approaches. This is a necessary to quantify and value women’s
contributions to GHG mitigation.
3. The WCS will permit projects that include social co-benefits for women to receive
a premium price the carbon market. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
buyers - those companies who pay for offsets to enhance their brand image - are
willing to pay more for credits that are generated from projects that have
compelling human interest stories.
The prevailing public perception of women as members of a vulnerable groups most
affected by climate change limits their opportunities to participate in the market and
obtain benefits to improve their quality of life. This perception should be changed to
enable their engagement in climate change mitigation programs
A transparent, rigorous, and realistic mechanism that can promote women’s
empowerment using private sector market approaches is needed to quantify and value
to women’s contributions to GHG mitigation.
Premium projects that include social co-benefits – such as the WCS – are more valued
in the marketplace. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) buyers - those companies
who pay for offsets to enhance their brand image - are willing to pay more for credits
that are generated from projects that have compelling human interest stories.
Who Should Use the WCS
The WCS can be applied by a range of implementers. While users may have differing
objectives, the utilization of the WCS will optimize the social and economic
empowerment of women in the project marketplace. Potential implementers include:
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Carbon Offset Project Developers – Projects can integrate the WCS from the initial
phases of project design, or may choose to integrate WCS into existing projects.
Carbon offset project developers using any of the current standards (such Gold
Standard, VCS, or CDM, for example) may find that through the inclusion of the social
component of the WCS, increased value is created for offset.
Community Project Developers – Working on their own or in collaboration with
international development organizations, community-based or non-government
organization (NGO) project developers may consider implementing the WCS as a
means to quantify the value provided to women and women’s groups within the project
community.
International Development Organizations – As more governments and institutions
recognize the importance of women’s inclusion and empowerment in natural resource
management policies and programs, these organizations may decide (and may
encourage others) to apply the WCS to the climate and community development
projects they fund.
Investors and Companies supporting Corporate Social Responsibility portfolios are a
natural impetus for the implementation of the WCS and the market penetration of WCSenhanced carbon offsets.
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How is the Women’s Carbon Standard Administered
Initially, WOCAN will administer the Women’s Carbon Standard.
More specific details including time-frames, documentation requirements, community
coordination and engagement best practices, expectations for specificity and
completeness and processes and procedures for administration of the WCS are
maintained in the WCS Program Guide.
Implementing the Women’s Carbon Standard
The WCS should be used in accordance with the WCS Program Guide, available on the
Women’s Carbon Standard website, www.womenscarbon.org.
Applicability
The implementation of the WCS begins with a determination of whether the WCS can
be used in conjunction with carbon offset project.
To determine this applicability, a project implementer shall evaluate:
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The degree of women’s current engagement in existing projects (establishing a
baseline, using the six domains referenced in the Program Guide);
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Opportunities for the project/s to enhance women’s empowerment within the
scope (project boundary) of the project.
Project Coordination
The project developer or implementation team should coordinate use of the WCS within
the selected project in a clear and transparent manner, taking overall responsibility,
providing the requisite capacity to support the women’s empowerment activities,
completing independent third party validation/verification and maintaining appropriate
records, as outlined in the Program Guide.
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Requirements
The WCS domains and criteria have been developed through a consultative process
with stakeholders that included communities within projects in Asia and Africa, subject
matter specialists in gender and carbon project development to form the basic
requirements of the standard. Each application of the standard will measure how well a
project meets each criteria through the validation and verification process. These are
the requirements that will be used to evaluate a project’s conformance and to determine
how the project has improved the quality of life for women in the community. The
women’s empowerment criteria fall into six domains:
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



Income and Assets
Time
Education and Knowledge
Leadership
Food Security
Health
The following paragraphs provide a brief description of each of the domains and
examples of criteria to be measured. Additional details and direction are available in the
Program Guide.
Income and Assets
The project implementer shall evaluate how the project has increased the income and
assets (material goods, monetary resources, land and livestock, etc.) that are
accessible to or controlled by women within households and communities where the
project is implemented. Specifically, the project implementer shall evaluate if there is an
increase in ownership of assets by women resulting from the project implementation
and/or an increase in women’s ability to generate income, and an increase in women’s
control of household income and assets. Examples of assets may be money, jewelry,
land, trees, livestock, or equipment. The provision of legal rights to women, including
that of citizenship can be a key to improving access to income and assets.
Conformance can be shown through the provision of women’s access to business
management and micro-finance services for women (both formal and informal),
women’s savings and loan initiatives (both formal and informal), and new business
opportunities in agro-enterprises. Other activities include skill development to develop
projects and proposals for funding, provision of agricultural inputs, support to women’s
cooperatives and advocacy for women to obtain land titles or certificates of ownership
or leases.
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Time
The project implementer shall evaluate how the project has improved the well being and
productivity of the women involved in or affected by the project (as in within the project
boundary). For the purposes of this standard, some ways this can be determined is by
measuring and documenting the increase in women’s discretionary or leisure time, by
measuring shifts in the use of time away from lower-value activities toward higher-value
activities, reduction in drudgery (gathering fuel, carrying water, etc.), or the increase in
men’s sharing of work usually done by women. Other measures could include such
things as women’s access to electricity, time-saving technologies, and tools (e.g.,
tractors, biogas, improved cook stoves, water pumps, storage facilities, etc.) that can
reduce the time women spend in household and farm tasks.
The availability of discretionary time often enables women to engage in activities that
increase their knowledge and skills, and develop their leadership capabilities to
participate in decision making. It also has health benefits and fosters success in other
domains measured in the WCS.
Education and Knowledge
The project implementer shall evaluate how the project has resulted in women’s
increased knowledge and skills, as well as the transmittal of women’s knowledge and
skills to others in the community, within the boundaries or scope of the project. This can
be measured by increased access to extension services to enhance knowledge about
agriculture, forest management, livestock and health, renewable energy, etc. Other
skills include those of basic reading and writing, numeracy, business management,
computer and GPS use, and communication. Local initiatives to share knowledge, skills
and information and invitations to participate in training and education opportunities and
exposure visits to observe successful initiatives in other communities, especially those
run by women, can provide strong incentives and positive examples.
Leadership
The project implementer shall evaluate how the implementation of the project has
resulted in increased decision making roles for women – within the context of the project
itself or within communities within the project boundary. This can be measured through
evaluating increases in the representation and participation of women both
quantitatively and qualitatively in governance bodies of community organizations
(measuring how many women are in leadership roles and how many are active in
discussions and decisions). In some areas, quotas for the representation of women in
governance bodies may have been established and should be documented. Another
measure to be documented is an increase in the effectiveness of women's groups to
advocate, manage funds, negotiate and network through leadership and
entrepreneurship skill development and coaching.
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Food Security
The project implementer shall evaluate how the project has decreased the quantity and
quality of food insecurity within households within the project scope or boundary. This
can be measured through documentation of increased yields and diversity of crops and
vegetables and other improvements in farming systems. Another approach is to
measure and document improvements in tools or access to tools, food storage facilities,
irrigation systems and farming practices that result in improved crop yields and
decreased post-harvest losses, leading to more availability of nutritious foods for
women and their families.
This indicator is highly dependent on local conditions and the criteria for conformance
should be carefully defined during the project design if possible and definitely prior to
validation/verification site visits.
Health
The project implementer shall evaluate how the project has improved the overall health
of women and their families and community members within the project scope or
boundary. Improvements that can be measured and documented include; improved
local or regional air quality, improved local water quality and quantity, and new or
improved sanitation services. Conformance can also be documented through improved
education, additional health clinics and improved staffing and supplies to existing health
clinics. Additional circumstances that can be measured and documented may include:
infant mortality rates, maternal mortality rates, rates of anaemia amongst women and
local disease rates (respiratory, gastrointestinal, etc.).
Validation/verification
The WCS was developed to quantify the impact of carbon offsets projects on the quality
of life of women in a robust manner that can be monitored and measured over time.
Validation/verification is a critical component to assure that projects are supporting
activities that result in significant improvements in women’s lives.
The WCS can be applied at the Validation or Verification stage of a project.
A complete table describing the criteria, including; Domain, Outcome, Indicators, and
Means of Verification is provided in the Program Guide. Please note that “Activities” are
provided as examples and will vary by project and according to local conditions.
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Definitions
Carbon Offsets – A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide
or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made
elsewhere. Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxideequivalent (CO2e) and may represent six primary types of greenhouse gases. These
include: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O),
perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
Carbon Offset Projects – A carbon mitigation project refers to a business initiative that
receives funding because of the cut the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that will
result. To prove that the project will result in real, permanent, verifiable reductions in
Greenhouse Gases, proof must be provided in the form of a project design document
and activity reports validated by an approved third party
Project Developers (PDs) – Any business, organization or community engaged in
pursuing Carbon Projects.
CDM/Clean Development Mechanism – The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is
one of the flexibility mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol (IPCC, 2007) that
provides for emissions reduction projects which generate Certified Emission
Reduction units which may be traded in emissions trading schemes.
The CDM is defined in Article 12 of the Protocol, and is intended to meet two objectives:
(1) to assist parties not included in Annex I in achieving sustainable development and in
contributing to the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is to prevent dangerous climate change; and (2) to
assist parties included in Annex I in achieving compliance with their quantified emission
limitation and reduction commitments (greenhouse gas (GHG) emission caps). "Annex
I" parties are those countries that are listed in Annex I of the treaty, and are the
industrialized countries. Non-Annex I parties are developing countries.
Conformance – Compliance with the WCS.
Criteria – The activities, changes or events which are to be measured to implement a
WCS project and to assess the effectiveness of a WCS project.
GHG Credit – Equivalent to a Carbon Offset. A Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Credit is a unit
of value ascribed to a specific reduction (or avoidance) in emissions. (Typically one ton
equivalent of C02). GHG Credits are used by purchasers to ‘offset’ their greenhouse
gas emissions (thus ‘carbon offset’) either voluntarily or for compliance obligations.
GHG Project – A carbon mitigation project.
Existing Carbon Projects – Projects under any current carbon offset standard which
are already operating.
The Gold Standard - The Gold Standard is an independent mechanism for creating
high-quality emission reductions projects in the Clean Development
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Mechanism (CDM) Joint Implementation (JI) and Voluntary Carbon Market. It was
designed to ensure that carbon credits are not only real and verifiable but that they
make measurable contributions to sustainable development worldwide. Its objective is
to add branding, a label to existing and new Carbon Credits generated by projects
which can then be bought and traded by countries that have a binding legal commitment
according to the Kyoto Protocol.
Outcome Indicators – Categories of activity outcomes which are used to measure the
effectiveness of a WCS project.
Project Developers (PDs) – Any business, organization or community engaged in
pursuing Carbon Projects.
Project Implementer – Any business, organization or community, or its contracted
designee, implementing and administering Carbon Projects.
Project Proponent – The ISO term used to describe the entity which has overall control
and responsibility for the project. Also used by VCS and the Climate Action Reserve.
Project Idea Note – A WCS project developer or implementer must submit an initial
Project Idea Note which contains information about the WCS implementation
component of the project. Please refer to the Program Guide for details.
Verification/Validation - Verification and Validation are independent procedures that
are used together for checking that a product, service, or system meets requirements
and specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. The words "verification" and
"validation" are sometimes preceded with "Independent" (or I V&V), indicating that the
verification and validation is to be performed by a disinterested third-party.
It is sometimes said that validation can be expressed by the question "Are you building
the right thing?" and verification by "Are you building it right?"
VCS/Voluntary Carbon Standard/Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) – The Verified
Carbon Standard (VCS) formerly the Voluntary Carbon Standard is a quality standard
for the voluntary carbon offset industry. Based on the Kyoto Protocol's Clean
Development Mechanism, VCS establishes criteria for validating, measuring, and
monitoring carbon offset projects.
WCS Program Guide - describes such things as the principles, procedures,
registration, execution, practical application of the WCS.
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