Belem, Brazil – November 17, 2025

Smallholder farmers manage more than 80% of the world’s farms and produce roughly one-third of global food. They are the backbone of food security and frontline stewards of the world’s most biodiverse and carbon-rich ecosystems. Yet despite their indispensable role, smallholders—particularly those across the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia—remain largely excluded from climate and biodiversity finance. High transaction costs, insecure land tenure, and methodologies designed for large industrial landscapes have kept them at the margins of carbon markets for decades.

Today, the Social Carbon Foundation is proud to announce the launch of SCM0011, a pioneering methodology specifically designed to unlock equitable climate finance for smallholders. The methodology is now open for public consultation from 17 November to 17 December.

A Methodology Built for the Frontlines of Deforestation

Smallholder communities often face intense pressure to convert forestland in order to survive. Limited livelihood alternatives and dependence on fuelwood drive deforestation at scales that are globally significant but frequently overlooked. SCM0011 responds to this challenge by introducing a scientifically rigorous and socially grounded approach to evaluating and rewarding smallholder stewardship.

At its core, SCM0011 integrates:

• A Dynamic Baseline Approach
  This innovative baseline method compares project areas to neighboring lands with similar socio-economic conditions, producing a fair, precise, and annually updated picture of true deforestation pressure. Designed for fragmented and biodiverse landscapes, it captures the realities of smallholder mosaics in ways traditional baselines cannot.

• The Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI)
  Built on collaboration with ECAM and ReSeed, the LVI identifies those most vulnerable to climate shocks, market volatility, and social inequality. It transforms carbon accounting into a holistic resilience framework that values ecological integrity alongside improvements in livelihoods, governance, equity, and adaptive capacity.

• A 50% Minimum Revenue-Sharing Requirement
  SCM0011 requires that at least half of all gross carbon revenues flow directly to participating smallholders. This is one of the highest equity thresholds in the market and ensures real, transformative benefits for rural families.

Together, these innovations establish a new paradigm for high-integrity climate action—one that is scientifically robust, socially just, and designed for scalability.

Redefining the Role of Smallholders in Nature-Based Solutions

For too long, smallholders have been treated as potential drivers of deforestation rather than as the custodians of ecosystem services they truly are. SCM0011 challenges this outdated paradigm by positioning communities not as peripheral beneficiaries, but as essential partners whose stewardship underpins regional carbon stability, biodiversity, and climate resilience.

The methodology embeds monitoring and verification systems that reflect real-world conditions and incorporates safeguards that prevent overstatement while strengthening community governance and equity. By doing so, it shifts the sector away from top-down conservation toward community-led climate solutions that produce more durable, inclusive outcomes.

Pilots Underway in Brazil

Early pilots using SCM0011 are already being implemented with Quilombola communities in Amapá, Brazil—traditional Afro-Brazilian groups with deep ancestral connections to their forested territories. These communities play a critical role in resisting deforestation pressures while sustaining cultural and ecological heritage. SCM0011 aims to strengthen their livelihoods, enhance local economies, and reinforce their vital contribution to global climate mitigation.

With successful proof of concept emerging, the potential to scale this model across millions of hectares of smallholder land is immense.

Call for Public Input

The Social Carbon Foundation invites all stakeholders—researchers, community organizations, developers, investors, government agencies, and civil society—to participate in the public consultation period running 17 November to 17 December.

Your perspectives will be essential in refining and further strengthening SCM0011 before formal adoption.

About the Social Carbon Foundation

Social Carbon Foundation develops tools and frameworks that align climate integrity with social justice. Its mission is to empower vulnerable communities with the resources, recognition, and revenue they need to protect ecosystems and build resilient futures.

About ECAM

Ecam is a a Brazilian organization that works – since 2002 – for the integration between socioeconomic development and environmental balance. Its mission is to promote innovative actions motivated by the interest of society, added to new technologies and aligned with the conservation of the environment (http://ecam.org.br/en/ )

About ReSeed

ReSeed P .B.C supports smallholder farmers in the promotion of sustainable farming practices and forest conservation via carbon credit financing for soil carbon and aboveground carbon stocks. Founded in 2003, ReSeed is built on long experience in working n Brazil in the carbon and agricultural sector. ReSeed simplifies the process of setting up carbon projects and makes carbon markets, and carbon funding, accessible to farmers anywhere in the world.

Media Contact:

Ian Short
Chief Operating Officer
Email: news@socialcarbon.org
Website: www.socialcarbon.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-carbon/