“The protocol this project applies is easily replicated while maintaining the credibility of the project’s baseline and additionality. The emission reduction from improved forest management projects using the CAR Mexico protocol usually results in projects issuing less than 10,000 tonnes a year, but these are high quality and deliver real benefits to the community. More than 90% of the revenues from sale of carbon flow back directly to the community. We are impressed with the communities’ involvement in the protection and management of the forest.”

– Sid Yadav, Director of Project Research

Global Forest Watch reports that from 200 to 2021, Mexico lost 4.48 million hectares of tree cover, an 8.4% decrease resulting in 1.78 Gt of CO2e emissions. Indigenous communities own most of the land, highlighting the opportunity to incorporate carbon offset projects and community-based Improved Forest Management (IFM) activities that provide ecosystem services, receive community support, and are sustainable for the planet. The sale of carbon offsets provides additional funds to further these communal activities.

This project mitigates forest exploitation by restoring areas impacted by severe erosion or those affected by disease, fire, and pests; and protects and prevents damage by fires, grazing, and illegal use of forest resources. By implementing Improved Forest Management (IFM) practices, the forest growth rate exceeds both the baseline and natural growth model. These techniques focus on surveillance tours to detect pests and diseases, destroy trees as needed, weed/invasive plant control, and pruning and thinning techniques to guarantee the natural regeneration of healthy and native species.

This community-based initiative will allow the community to diversify its income and contribute to reduced carbon emissions. All members of the community within the activity area are involved in a joint effort to sustainably manage and increase the carbon stocks in the forests.

• Protects several species of birds, orchids and other rare flowers, wild boars, white-tailed deer, and the puma—all threatened by deforestation.
• Creates a model for urgently needed forest conservation throughout Mexico and South America.
• Sustainably manages the forest with a minimal impact on the ecosystem but an extensive contribution to social and economic development.
• Creates jobs for local residents. Without the project, the main revenue source is agriculture with some cattle grazing.
• Provides education on forest management, monitoring and carbon revenue.
• Protects land ownership and revenue ownership rights of the communities and enables people keeps people in rural communities.
• Brings in additional resources to reinvest in the forest

• Under financial pressure, the forests are likely to be logged to the maximum possible extent
• Obtaining an agreement and a majority through a variety of community members can be difficult.
• The forest is at risk of fires or pests.
• Forest conservation is a low priority and not well understood in Mexico.
• The government is not very proactive with forest conservation.
• Providing long-term and sustainable income streams to forest dwellers and their families is challenging

“Mexico ranks second in Latin America in global greenhouse gas emissions and methane constitutes around one-third of Mexico’s GHG emissions. Methane primarily originates from solid municipal waste landfills where standard practice is open dumpsite waste disposal. This project manages the waste using technology to create an environmentally safe method. By supporting well-run projects like this one, we can permanently destroy this powerful short-lived climate pollutant and have a significant impact on the environment.”

– Johanna Depenthal, Director of Project Research

The Ciudad Juarez Landfill Gas to Energy Project is a landfill gas (LFG) collection and utilization project in the Ciudad Juarez landfill in the desert-dominated state of Chihuahua, Mexico (the Host Country). The Project’s purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by capturing and utilizing the methane (CH4) in the LFG released by the Ciudad Juarez landfill and avoiding future GHG emissions from the decomposition of municipal solid waste residues.

The captured methane is combusted to generate electricity exported to the national power grid and used as an alternative source of cheap, local, stable, and renewable energy. Thus, in addition to directly eliminating a significant portion of methane emissions, a potent GHG with 80 times the global warming potential of CO2 in a 20-year period, the Project will also displace fossil fuel-based electricity generation that would have caused the emission of additional CO2. All landfill gas collected when electricity is not produced will be flared turning methane gases into carbon dioxide (a lower global warming potential pollutant) and water.

The Ciudad Juarez landfill, which started operating in 1994, has an estimated capacity of 30,000,000 cubic meters and a footprint of 79 hectares (nearly 200 acres or 151 football fields). The landfill, when full, is predicted to be closed in 2040.

The collected landfill gas is used for electricity generation on-site using a destruction device considered as Rich-burn internal combustion engine as per Mexico Landfill Protocol. The plant for generating electricity includes a generator-set of 6.4 MW installed capacity (comprised of four generator engines), a 13.8 to 115 kVA transformer during phase I, a transmission line that reaches the local electric grid.

The project has been registered since 30/11/2007 under CDM Standard and has successfully transitioned to the Climate Action Reserve Registry for its second crediting period.

• Destruction of Methane Gas
• Improves the local environment and reduces health risks by reducing the amount of noxious air pollution arising from the landfill.
• Generate electricity to the national power grid.
• Reduces the dependency on fossil fuel-generated electricity by using renewable energy.
• Short-term and long-term job opportunities
• Technology transfer of landfill management

• Working in a dangerous area of Mexico
• Sophisticated equipment and need to train personnel.

“The stove passes routine testing by standard Kitchen Performance Tests, and the wood savings are verified. Support and interest in the stove in rural communities in Honduras are overwhelming to the point where it requires no marketing, the growing participation is from word of mouth.

After families get a cookstove, they receive three follow-up visits to ensure the stove was installed and working correctly. This project uses Salesforce CRM to collect usage and maintenance data to identify and solve issues quickly. As a nonprofit, 100% of the proceeds from carbon sales are applied to stove production in Honduras without administrative or operating costs for the staff supporting the project from the United States.”

—Sid Yadav, Director of Project Research

Local Hondurans call the stoves Dos Por Tres, slang for, “In an Instant.” Instantly, these stoves save wood, save time, eliminate toxic smoke from the household, and help the planet by saving miles of forests and reducing carbon emissions by about 3 tonnes per stove per year. To date, the project has avoided the emissions of more than 2 million metric tonnes of CO2 and equivalent gases (mtCO2e).

Cooking in Central America relies on traditional stoves that burn significant amounts of local wood and emit smoke into the home. The stoves are on for eight hours a day and when cooks stand directly over stoves to cook the family tortillas, they breath the smoke that covers the kitchen roofs and walls in soot.

Installed directly in the home, the improved cookstoves are built from locally available cement or adobe bricks. The stove features a thermodynamic rocket elbow design that provides more direct heat to the food with less wood, so food is cooked faster. Families save money by purchasing less wood or save time by gathering less wood, rid the house of smoke, cook faster and, in a Dos por Tres, help save our planet.

• Constructed 210,000 stoves to date, benefitting 874,000 people.
• Monitors each location with GPS & follow-up visits and stores the information in a Salesforce database.
• Saves the equivalent of ~5-9 trees per year per stove or 1.6 metric tonnes of firewood per year.
• Reduces carbon monoxide and particulate matter in the home by 79%.
• Provides 18,000 hours of stove maintenance training and fuel reduction tips each year.
• Created 22 microenterprises and 170 jobs to date.
• Families do not buy a stove; they co-invest in one. They provide bricks and mortar, the project provides construction, know-how, and specialized stove parts

• Working in Honduras can be dangerous due to corruption, drugs, and human trafficking making some areas difficult to access.
• Hurricanes and torrential rains continue to impact build schedules each year.
• In Honduras, the decision to get a cookstove is usually made by the man of the home, who may not think it is important. This restricts stove distribution to families in need.