Certification Criteria
The Certification Criteria for the Community Inclusion Standard (CIS) provides the technical standards that a project would be audited against, to achieve an NFCA CIS certification, either at a Basic or Enhanced level.
- Basic level certification provides assurances on community inclusion and engagement.
- Enhanced level certification provides assurances on the management of community benefits.
Projects that achieve certification at a Basic or Enhanced level will be able to use our Certification Mark in their printed an online media, including any relevant project registries.
The intended audience of the certification criteria are professional auditors, trained in the validation and verification of projects against specified standards. As a 'plug-in' standard, the intention is for our certification criteria to be integrated into participating codes and credit schemes.
For anyone outside of this profession, we encourage you to focus your attention on our best practice guide, which provides practical and plain English guidance on how to achieve these levels of certification.
The certification criteria below are published under Creative Commons licensing, to enable them to be integrated into other third party nature credit schemes and certification standards.
Basic Certification Criteria
Section 1.1 - Identifying the Community
1.1.1. The project shall identify communities of place relevant to the project boundary, and the groups within these communities that are most relevant to engage with the project, including marginalised and/or vulnerable groups, where these have been identified.
1.1.2 The project shall also identify key communities and organisations of interest that are not located in proximity to the project boundary, but who have a material interest in the project area that could be enhanced or compromised by the project, including marginalised and/or vulnerable groups, where these have been identified.
1.1.3 The project must only exclude relevant parties if their material interest is deemed insufficient to justify engagement - justification must be recorded. If these have also been identified as marginalised or vulnerable groups, additional justification for the exclusion of these groups must be provided.
1.1.4 The project shall revisit identification of relevant parties at least on a decadal basis, to ensure that new groups and organisations, and their changing needs and interests, are captured in ongoing engagement.
1.1.5 The project shall identify project boundaries on an accessible map, showing its location in relation to nearby communities of place.
Section 1.2 - Engaging the Community
1.2.1 The project shall engage as early as possible with relevant parties, ensuring that those affected are able to feed into the decision-making process when changes can still be made to mitigate impacts, managing expectations appropriately and providing evidence of systematic and inclusive engagement in project design.
1.2.2 The project shall work with trained engagement professionals or seek engagement training for project staff engaging with relevant parties, to ensure appropriate engagement methods are selected and executed well, including the management of power dynamics and engagement with marginalised and vulnerable groups.
1.2.3 Where concerns arise during engagement, the project developer shall enter into a constructive dialogue to resolve the issues, incorporating changes to requests that are appropriate and proportionate in their project design. Relevant parties shall have recourse to a dispute or conflict resolution process under the Code if issues are not resolved satisfactorily. Details of objections and resolutions shall be anonymised in line with UK GDPR and included as an appendix to the Project Design Document (PDD).
1.2.4 Where requests are appropriate and proportionate, they shall be addressed within six weeks of being raised. Where requests are not deemed appropriate or proportionate, they shall still be addressed within this time, providing contact details for the Code operator if relevant parties wish to take their concerns further.
1.2.5 Relevant parties shall have recourse to a dispute or conflict resolution process under the Code if issues are not resolved satisfactorily.
1.2.6 Details of objections and resolutions shall be anonymized in line with UK GDPR and included as an appendix to the Project Design Document (PDD).
1.2.7 Where required by law, a full public consultation shall also be carried out in line with the relevant legislation.
1.2.8 The project shall provide opportunities for continuous feedback as the project is implemented and maintained for the duration of the project and its permanence period (whichever is longest). To facilitate this, up-to-date contact information for the landowner and/or project developer shall be publicly available for the duration of the project, with a named point of contact that can be contacted directly by relevant parties, to enable ongoing feedback from relevant parties.
1.2.9 Where possible, the project shall provide transparency on any private benefits and beneficiaries, including buyers of carbon and nature credits.
1.2.10 The project shall communicate in a way that is transparent and accessible, paying particular attention to the specific needs of marginalised and/or vulnerable groups, where these have been identified.
1.2.11 Projects shall clearly communicate whether or not there will be any direct community benefits. These shall be clearly differentiated from indirect benefits arising from the public goods generated by the project, for example, benefits arising from climate mitigation or biodiversity enhancement (i.e. those that cannot be defined as community benefits).
Enhanced Certification Criteria
Section 2.1 Developing Community Benefits
2.1.1 The project shall engage annually with relevant parties about the progress of the project, including what has and has not been achieved, and subsequent project plans.
2.1.2 The project shall build capacity and capability for engagement among relevant parties or support existing capacity where this exists.
2.1.3 The project shall co-produce a formal agreement or memorandum of understanding regarding the engagement rights and responsibilities of relevant parties, the project developer and owner, to be co-developed and signed by those organisations identified in section 1.1 that are willing to do so.
2.1.4 Projects seeking enhanced certification shall assess potential negative impacts on relevant parties, gathering feedback during design (see section 1.2) to categorise impacts as low, medium, or high. Medium and high impacts shall be transparently communicated, including timing and party-specific effects. The project shall work with relevant parties to avoid or mitigate negative impacts, detailing responses to feedback as part of the project design phase.
Section 2.2 - Managing Community Benefits
2.2.1 Projects seeking enhanced certification shall identify direct community benefits with relevant parties, ensuring that these are consistent with existing local community action plans, where these exist. Forms of direct community benefit include monetary and non-monetary public goods compensation and transfer of land tenure (see best practice guidance for specific examples).
2.2.2 Projects seeking enhanced certification shall collaborate with relevant parties to identify relevant measurement methods that can be used to verify each of the community benefits identified. Only community benefits with relevant measurement methods shall be accepted for certification.
2.2.3 Projects seeking enhanced certification shall create baselines against which delivery of community benefits can be assessed and document delivery progress by planned dates.
The certification criteria above are published under Creative Commons licensing, to enable them to be integrated into other third party nature credit schemes and certification standards. Referred to as our Community Inclusion Standard 'plug-in', our certification process is already fully digitised within the Kana Hub.
Community Inclusion Standard Certification Criteria by Nature Finance Certification Alliance
is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
This project has been supported by The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland , delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with The Scottish Government and in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund
