Uniting to protect tropical forests.
For climate, people & nature.

What is the LEAF Coalition?

The LEAF Coalition is a unique public private partnership focused on halting tropical deforestation by 2030. By bringing together forest governments, the private sector, donor governments, Indigenous Peoples and local communities and civil society, LEAF aims to raise and deploy the finance needed to tackle deforestation by making tropical forests worth more alive than dead.

The LEAF Coalition is convened and coordinated by Emergent, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending tropical deforestation. LEAF aims to channel funds to forest governments by purchasing high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ credits.

News and Updates

Costa Rica and Ghana agree landmark deals to supply forest carbon credits to LEAF Coalition buyers

Acre Term Sheet Signing Thumbnail (1).png

Acre leads the way in Brazil with the first LEAF Coalition term sheet

Emergent to pilot advance payments for LEAF Coalition transactions

The Republic of Congo submits successful proposal to the LEAF Coalition

Why Protect Forests?

Reversing deforestation is one of the most scalable and cost-effective ways of fighting climate change while supporting livelihoods and protecting nature. But the world continues to lose forests at an alarming rate, with around 4 million hectares of primary tropical forest lost in 2021 alone. An area the size of New York’s Central Park every 18 minutes.

12-20%

Of global greenhouse gas emissions are driven by land use changes, principally deforestation.

1.6 BILLION

People depend on forests for their livelihoods.

3rd

If deforestation were a country it would be the third largest emitter after the USA and China.

80%

Of all terrestrial biodiversity is found in tropical forests.

Urgent action is needed to halt and reverse tropical forest loss by 2030

The LEAF Story

The LEAF Coalition aims to provide the finance needed to enable tropical and subtropical forest governments (national and subnational) to move more rapidly towards ending deforestation, while supporting them in achieving their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

LEAF works at scale, supporting large scale REDD+ programs to reduce emissions from deforestation across entire countries, or subnational jurisdictions, which involve all key stakeholders, including Indigenous peoples and local communities.

The LEAF Coalition is fully focused on integrity, only purchasing forest carbon credits that meet the stringent criteria of the robust and independent ART TREES Standard which guarantees the highest levels of environmental integrity and social safeguards. Find out more about ART TREES .

LEAF also employs a stringent buyers’ criteria to ensure that all action taken by buyers is additional to deep value chain emissions cuts. Learn more about the Buyer's Criteria.

LEAF Participants

Corporate Participants

Over 25 major corporations have committed funding to LEAF

Forest Governments

26 Forests Governments (national and subnational) have expressed an interest to work with LEAF to reduce tropical deforestation. Eight have signed Letters of Intent (LOIs) and Ghana and Costa Rica have now signed ERPAs to supply high integrity credits to the LEAF Coalition .

Countries with finalized Emissions Reductions Purchase Agreements (ERPAs)

Countries with signed Letters of Intent (LOI)

Brazilian States with LOIs:

Donor Governments

Four Donor Governments have committed funds to LEAF:

Civil Society & International Organizations

LEAF is also supported by a range of civil society groups, international organizations and NGOs:

About Emergent

Emergent is the non-profit convenor and coordinator of the LEAF Coalition. It enters into parallel contracts, or Emissions Reductions Purchase Agreements (ERPAs), with forest governments selling credits on one side, and with LEAF Coalition corporate buyers and donor governments on the other. This enables Emergent to offer credits from one forest nation to multiple buyers via a single contract, whilst buyers, through their single contract with Emergent, can purchase credits from a range of Forest Governments.

Meet the Emergent Team

About ART

ART is a third-party standards body, entirely independent of Emergent and The LEAF Coalition. LEAF aims to channel funds to forest governments by purchasing of high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ credits. All jurisdictional credits purchased through LEAF must meet the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions’ (ART) standard TREES, which ensures the highest standards of environmental integrity and social safeguards.

Learn more about ART

John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, United States

"The LEAF Coalition has set forth ways and demonstrates a very clear pathway by which we can work together to raise climate ambition."

Manish Bapna, Former Interim President and CEO, World Resources Institute

"The LEAF Coalition offers an important new approach that can help scale forest protection finance, without diluting emissions reductions elsewhere. With the proper oversight and administration, this coalition can help bring the world closer to achieving a 1.5 C pathway"

Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme

I welcome the establishment of the LEAF Coalition – an ambitious initiative that will make available on a large-scale – the finance we need to conserve and sustainably use our forests, in a way that sees it as an addition to, and not a substitute, for deep cuts in emissions.