Our Approach
Methods
Each EldHollow review assesses a carbon project using a structured framework of benchmarks organized into five scoring categories. The benchmarks are weighted by their importance, and scores are based on the available documentation as well as the relevant geospatial, ecological, and socioeconomic evidence. If key project documents are missing, we clearly identify these gaps and explain how their absence impacts the score. We do not make assumptions about the best-case scenarios for any undisclosed information.
Our scoring benchmarks are intended to provide an objective comparison of carbon offset projects. Each project is evaluated using the same set of benchmarks, and clients can prioritize certain benchmarks to ensure the final score reflects their values. After logging into their account, clients can modify benchmark weights for all projects of a similar type or adjust them on a project-by-project basis.
Scoring Framework
Project scoring is calculated from a series of project quality benchmarks derived by EldHollow LLC. Benchmarks are divided into five categories that assess the core components of forest carbon offset projects. The five assessment categories are; 1) Social Harms, Benefits, and Durability, 2) Environmental Harms, Benefits, and Durability, 3) Additionality and Project Baseline, 4) Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification, and 5) Leakage. Benchmarks within each category are loosely organized into sub-categories for easier interpretation. The Additionality and Project Baseline category also contains two “Must” criteria the project must meet in order to score any benchmarks in that category.
Within each of the five assessment categories, the project score increases for each benchmark it meets. Each quality benchmark is worth 1 point. The score for each category is calculated as the number of benchmarks a project scores divided by the total possible benchmarks within that category. If the project does not satisfy the “Must” criteria for the Additionality and Project Baseline category, it will score a 0 for that category regardless of the number of benchmarks it meets.
Using Social Harms, Benefits, and Durability as an example, if a project scores 11 benchmarks out of a possible 14, its score for that category is 79%.
Project quality benchmarks may be revised or weighted according to individual client values. Weights can be added to benchmarks the client feels are particularly important or valuable for their own assessments of project quality. Using the above example, if the project scores 11 benchmarks out of a possible 14, but one of the benchmarks it scored was weighted as 3 points, then the project scored 13 out of a possible 16 points for a final score of 81%.
The overall score for a project is calculated as the total number of points scored across all categories divided by the total possible number of points across all categories. The carbon score is calculated as the total number of points scored across the Additionality and Project Baseline, Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification, and Leakage categories divided by the total possible number of points across those three categories. The carbon score is designed to reflect the quality of the project's carbon offsetting attributes, while the overall score reflects the quality of the project as a whole.
Please visit our Benchmarks page for a detailed list of all the benchmarks we use to evaluate projects. Below is a summary of the five scoring categories and how they represent project quality.
Social Harms, Benefits & Durability
Local communities are often the backbone of carbon projects, and how a project interacts with community members can determine the success of the project over time. Local traditions, societal structures, and interpersonal relationships influence forest management practices differently around the world. Projects must be flexible in how they engage with communities so the project is equitable and promotes social justice. EldHollow's quality benchmarks assess how the project is implemented regarding benefit sharing, community input on project design, feedback loops, local customs, and more to ensure the project adheres to a high standard of fairness and social durability.
Ecological Harms, Benefits & Durability
Forest ecosystems vary considerably around the world, and how they should be managed depends on local climatic conditions, topography, the forest condition, notable pests and diseases, and other factors. Some projects are located in areas susceptible to intense natural disturbances such as hurricanes or fires, while others may be in arid climates or located on degraded soils. All these factors, including how the project manages for them, can influence project durability. EldHollow's quality benchmarks assess how the project is implemented regarding silvicultural practices, species selection, preparing for potential forest disturbances, forest operations, and more to ensure the project's forest management adheres to a high standard of scientific rigor and ecological durability.
Additionality & Project Baseline
EldHollow generates its own baseline using an end-to-end geospatial pipeline to compare against the project's baseline, offering a quantitative assessment of project additionality. Additionality is the most important driver of project crediting, but it is one of the most difficult aspects of project design for developers to quantify and for reviewers to assess. Each protocol uses a different methodology to determine project baselines, and protocols often allow developers to customize their own baseline approach. This flexibility allows projects to consider bespoke solutions to local conditions at the expense of consistency across protocols, registries, and the broader market, which makes determining the “best” solution a challenge. EldHollow assesses project additionality across three axes: 1) regulatory additionality, 2) financial additionality, and 3) the project’s baseline. The project must pass at least one benchmark in both the regulatory additionality and financial additionality sub-categories, otherwise the project receives a zero for the entire category.
Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting & Verification
Forest measurements and how they are converted to biomass are key drivers of project crediting. Most projects measure trees by hand and convert those measurements to biomass using allometric equations. A growing number of projects use a combination of remote sensing and traditional forest measurements to determine carbon stocks, while some projects rely entirely on remote sensing. All methods have strengths and weaknesses, which also applies to predicting ex-ante carbon stocks into the future. EldHollow assesses a project’s forest inventory methodology, allometric equations, tree growth equations, and, if used, its remote sensing model to determine the project’s MMRV quality and conservativeness.
Leakage
Leakage is the most difficult aspect of project design for developers to quantify accurately. Market leakage in particular is enigmatic and can be influenced by regional and global forces that change dynamically through time. There is a small, but growing, body of scientific literature that attempts to study drivers of market leakage and quantify market leakage from carbon projects. These studies, however, are often too generalized for projects or reviewers to be taken verbatim. EldHollow’s quality benchmarks assess how the project quantifies leakage relative to the most up-to-date scientific literature and whether the project has robust plans to monitor for, and prevent, leakage.
Geospatial Analysis
EldHollow utilizes an end-to-end geospatial pipeline to assess project additionality that includes various satellite imagery sources, bioclimatic variables, local and space-born LiDAR, roads, mill locations, and more. We support other scoring categories with analyses derived from the Global Land Analysis & Discovery forest canopy loss product, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and various other publicly available datasets. Our methods are constantly evolving as new science and data become available.