Plan Vivo Standard: PV Climate and PV Nature

Updated 2026-11-02 · 4 min read · By the akar.earth specialist team

Plan Vivo standard explained: PV Climate carbon and PV Nature biodiversity certification, the 60% community revenue rule and fit for Indonesian projects.

The Plan Vivo standard is a certification system for community-led nature-based projects, with two standards: PV Climate for carbon and PV Nature for biodiversity. It is built for smallholders and community groups, and it requires that at least 60% of certificate sale revenue goes back to local communities.

What Plan Vivo is

Plan Vivo is an Edinburgh-based NGO and registered charity in Scotland. It describes over 25 years of experience certifying nature-based projects, with PV Climate’s roots going back to the 1990s. Certified projects issue Plan Vivo Certificates (PVCs), which buyers purchase for long-term climate or nature impact.

The two standards are:

Projects choose the standard that matches their focus and interventions.

How the system is governed

Plan Vivo assesses projects against its own standards. Technical decisions are taken by a Technical Advisory Committee together with the Plan Vivo Secretariat, and strategic decisions are signed off by a Board of Trustees. There are two Technical Review Panels, one for PV Climate and one for PV Nature, made up of experts in carbon quantification, ecology and conservation.

Project design documents, standard documents and methodologies periodically go through public consultation. In 2026, consultations included updates to a harvested wood products tool and module revisions under the Agriculture and Forestry Carbon Benefit Assessment Methodology (PM001).

Who uses it

• Community groups and smallholder associations that hold or manage land collectively.
• NGOs acting as project coordinators that aggregate many small plots.
• Buyers seeking strong community benefit and a clear benefit-sharing story, often in smaller volumes than REDD+ buyers.

Key requirements

At headline level, Plan Vivo requires credible, measurable outcomes for climate, nature and people, combining technical integrity with governance, safeguards and local participation. In practice, project teams should expect:

• Community ownership of the plan. Land-use plans (“plan vivos”) are developed with participants, not imposed.
• Benefit sharing of at least 60% of certificate sale revenue to communities.
• Approved methodologies and tools for quantification, such as PM001 for agriculture and forestry.
• Safeguards and grievance processes, which Plan Vivo has published analysis on across VCM programs.
• Independent validation and verification under PV Nature and PV Climate requirements.

The clause-level requirements change through consultation. Download the current documents from the Plan Vivo library rather than relying on older project examples.

How it applies in Indonesia and Southeast Asia

Plan Vivo’s community model lines up with Indonesian policy. Permenhut 6/2026 names social forestry (perhutanan sosial), customary forests (hutan adat) and communities as legitimate and equal participants in forestry carbon trading, framed by the Ministry as “carbon for the people”. A Plan Vivo project led by a village forest (hutan desa) or community forest group can fit both systems. See our page on social forestry carbon.

Indonesian activity is visible on Plan Vivo’s consultation pages. In 2026 a community peatland conservation and restoration project in Indonesia had its PDD open for public consultation until 30 November 2026.

Domestic rules still apply. Perpres 110/2025 is the legal anchor for carbon trading, units traded on IDXCarbon must be recorded in SRUK, and benefit-sharing arrangements must also satisfy Indonesian rules. Read our benefit-sharing page.

PV Climate or PV Nature: how to choose

The choice follows the project’s main intervention and its buyers:

• Choose PV Climate where tree planting, agroforestry, forest protection or peat restoration produce measurable carbon outcomes, and buyers want climate certificates. Carbon quantification uses approved methodologies and tools such as PM001.
• Choose PV Nature where the core outcome is habitat or species recovery that carbon accounting would undervalue, such as protecting a small but species-rich forest fragment. PV Nature has its own calculation protocol, baseline additionality tool and templates for project idea notes and PDDs.
• Consider timing. A project idea note and early community consultation come before the full PDD under both standards, so the choice can be tested early.

Plan Vivo reports self-published portfolio totals, including 15.9 million tCO2 of planned emission reductions and USD 54 million directed to communities, without stated as-of dates.

Common pitfalls

• Under-resourcing community processes. Participatory planning, consent and grievance systems take time and budget.
• Weak plot data. Smallholder projects still need defensible tree and plot measurements. Our field data campaigns help here.
• Assuming CCP labels are available. Buyers who require CCP-labelled credits may not be able to use PVCs.
• Small volumes, high fixed costs. Aggregation across many groups is often needed to cover validation and monitoring.

Relationship to ICVCM CCP status

ICVCM’s published decisions listed ACR, ART TREES, CAR, Equitable Earth, Gold Standard, GCC, Isometric, Puro.Earth, Rainbow and Verra as CCP-Eligible. Plan Vivo was not on that list. Check the ICVCM status table for any change. For buyers who need the CCP label, this is a key screening question.

Next steps

Compare Verra vs Plan Vivo, see the standards hub, or read our guide to smallholder ARR aggregation.