At the Initiative-level, contributors work together on the selection of country programs and exchanging lessons between them.

At the level of the country programs, country-specific advisory bodies composed of leading experts from government, civil society and the private sector with a range of relevant knowledge may provide technical input into the program design and development of a specific country program, and work with recipient government to catalyze the implementation of programs.

The BioCarbon Fund has three tranches. Tranches 1 and 2 projects have invested in environmental restoration, afforestation, reforestation, sustainable agriculture, and project-level REDD+. Tranche 1 and 2’s innovative work was made possible through the technical support funded by the BioCFplus program. The technical assistance portion of the Fund supports project development and implementation with capacity building and training. The program further supports the pioneering role of the BioCarbon Fund by developing methodologies and tools for carbon accounting, promoting policy dialogue and by disseminating lessons learned.

On behalf of its investors, the BioCarbon Fund Tranches 1 and 2 pay for land-based carbon emission reductions from projects implemented on forested or agricultural lands in developing countries. The investors can choose to use these purchases against obligations for emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol or for other regulated or voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction regimes, and investors have the option to retire the emission reduction credits altogether, thereby funding these projects without purchasing any carbon credits. The payment made for the emission reductions in turn benefits the project stakeholders as per benefit-sharing arrangements agreed with each individual project.

Tranche 3 along with a portion of the BioCFplus is referred to as the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) and aims to promote reduced greenhouse gas emissions from the land sector, from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+) and from sustainable agriculture, as well as smarter land-use planning, policies and practices. The initiative will deploy results-based finance to incentivize changes at the landscape level.

The BioCarbon Fund ISFL is committed to working at the scale of the jurisdictional landscape. National or jurisdictional governments consider the trade-offs and synergies between different land-uses that may compete in a jurisdiction — such as agriculture, energy, and forest protection and successfully identify integrated solutions that serve multiple objectives. Adopting a landscape approach means implementing a development strategy that is climate smart, equitable, productive and profitable at scale and strives for environmental, social, and economic impact.

In addition, the Initiative is designed to work alongside a wide range of private actors, from multi-national corporations to large national actors and emerging small and medium enterprises and smallholders, incentivizing them to accelerate “forest-proof” sourcing of commodities and redirecting market forces toward more sustainable and equitable land management practices.

These projects are sequestering 15 million tons of CO2e in their first 10 years of operation. The projects have all been pioneers in the land-use carbon markets and span 16 countries across major regions of the developing world (Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America).