From definitions to offsets, and technologies to greenwashing, GreenBiz Chairman & Co-founder Joel Makower presents five questions about what net zero means — and doesn’t.

Can companies eliminate deforestation and child labor from their cocoa supply chains? Latest Supply Change research shows companies’ challenges and achievements in addressing this and how the guidance from the Accountability Framework – which celebrates its two-year anniversary this month – can help companies make meaningful progress.

Mid-year climate talks have wrapped up without progress on how the UN should manage international carbon markets. That’s fine because the UN shouldn’t be trying to micromanage markets, says former negotiator Jos Cozijnsen.

Despite funding to conserve and increase carbon stored in the world’s forests more than doubled between 2016 and 2019, Ecosystem Marketplace’s latest report shows that forest carbon finance still falls far short of what’s needed to counter global forest loss and support increased climate ambition.

Integrity and practicality. Will accounting technicalities of voluntary carbon claims get in the way of deploying carbon finance in voluntary carbon markets that supports developing countries and communities battle poverty and invest in clean energy and transport, sustainable land use, and healthy ecosystems?

If illegal deforestation for agriculture were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world after China and the US.

Carbon finance is growing and countries are faced with an array of choices—including whether to pursue projects, nesting or jurisdictional REDD+, which standards to use in doing so, and what finance opportunity to pursue.  The landscape can be a confusing array of options.  In this contribution to the Shades of REDD+ series, targeted for forest countries, we try to demystify three opportunities to capture finance for jurisdictional REDD+ performance.