The diversity of animals, plants, and habitats (including the variety of useful plants and animals) can only be preserved if we are able to esteem biodiversity on the basis of the natural and very own right of all life on our planet to exist.
More and more farmers, producers of foodstuffs and consumer goods, or commercial and industrial enterprises are interested in showing their responsibility for nature as well as their sustainable acting to the public.
That is where the S.U.N.-Certificate © applies. It consequently combines objectives and demands for the protection of the climate, biodiversity, and sustainability.
In accordance with the Sustainability Goals of the United Nations (UNCED, 1992) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1994) a reliable, credible and realistic standard system for tree-based carbon projects as well as for climate friendly and sustainable agricultural products is presented.
We find that no single existing standard1 covers all the necessary aspects of a comprehensive standard system for tree-based /forest carbon from projects design to validation, registration and ongoing monitoring. We realize that purely climate mitigating perspectives are only “a second-best alternative” to be employed after all reasonable efforts have been made by investors to reduce their primary emissions.
The S.U.N.-Certificate aims to provide a convenient system to assure offset investors, and other stakeholders that projects, certified under S.U.N. Criteria, can address the full range of social, environmental, faire trade and carbon-accounting issues.
The S.U.N. Criteria will also “ensure that forest carbon projects meet high standards of environmental and social integrity consistent with the Millenium Development Goals and corporate social and environmental responsibility” and “rigorous carbon accounting practices, adherence to environmental and social safeguards, benefit sharing and acknowledging of indigenous peoples´ rights and sustainable forest and land-use management” .
The S.U.N.-Certificate was designed by NatureLife-International, foundation for the sustainability, together with the Centre of Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics of the Hohenheim University near Stuttgart in Germany and other notable scientists, environmentalists, and experts on sustainability, nature conservation, land-use management, and food safety.
The S.U.N.-Certificate is issued upon application and after successful revision / accreditation according to the strictly defined S.U.N. Criteria and successful auditing. It has a validation of three years. The Certificate is renewed after the positive examination of the adherence to the Criteria as well as the fulfilment of the optimisation steps which were agreed upon for the first verification.
1: (e.g. CDM Clean Development Mechanism; VCS Voluntary Carbon Standard; CCB Climate, Community and Biodiversity; GS Gold Standard; FSC Forest Stewardship Council)