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Frequently Asked Questions

AGROFORESTRY

What does agroforestry mean? Agroforestry defines land use systems in which trees are combined with crops or livestock on the same area. In doing so, positive ecological and economic interactions are created.

What are the advantages of agroforestry? - Regeneration of soil & ecosystems - Improving biodiversity - Improving the microclimate - Enhancing welfare of farm and wild animals - Improvement of on-farm productivity - No conflict but synergies with food production - Broadening the income streams of farmers - Providing large volumes of regenerative raw materials for human needs - Safely sequestering CO2 in healthy ecosystems and durable products

Which tree species are used by VIVO Carbon? We mainly use pioneer tree species like poplars, as they grow fastest in Europe and maximize climate benefits. With every ton of wood growth an equivalent of CO2 is captured and stored. One ton of wood dry-matter is storing the carbon amount of more than 1.8 tons of CO2. Poplars are the fastest growing trees in temperate climates and therefore capture most CO2 in a given time span. By also being incredibly hardy and growing on a broad range of farmland conditions, they exhibit by far the highest potential climate effect and productivity in terms of agroforestry tree species.

What are pioneer tree species? Pioneer tree species are the first trees that grow under uncomfortable or harsh conditions. They are less demanding in terms of soil-structure, nutrients and decent temperature levels. Therefore they usually prepare disturbed areas, e.g. after a land slide, a forest fire or even an ice-age, for the more demanding, but also higher valued tree species. Poplars in agroforestry systems can thereby be a door opener for the introduction of fruit- and nut trees into more complex agricultural systems at scale.

How are fast growing trees increasing biodiversity? The main benefits of fast growing pioneer trees for biodiversity are the indirect effects. The poplars are rapidly creating an advantageously diverse microclimate and habitat and thereby mimic natural biodiversity hotspots, which are characterized by a high diversity in conditions, such as moist/dry and light/shade areas, for example to be found on the edge of a forest. Alley-cropping systems are delivering specifically those conditions. We invite you to experience this effect in real conditions yourself, when walking through a two-year old agroforestry system which already hosts such a heightened abundance of insects, that walking through it may start feeling uncomfortable.

Do you also plant fruit- and nut trees, native trees or timber species? At present, VIVO Carbon is focussing on tree species that have the largest impact on CO2 sequestration, such as poplars. In certain projects, and if cooperating farmers are open to it, we will include fruit-, nut-, timber- or native tree species, although this requires substantially higher upfront investments.

Why productive systems? Productive systems can multiply the climate protection effect of agroforestry systems, insofar as the products are utilized in terms of climate protection. 1. CO2 is captured through photosynthesis in the wood, the roots and through humus build-up 2. CO2 is permanently stored in the respective wood product after harvesting and processing 3. Wood as a resource and building material can replace raw materials with a poor CO2 balance such as cement or concrete, bricks, glass, metal or plastic 4. The trees can regrow more vigorously after harvesting due to the space gained. Through several rotations, the trees continue to capture new CO2 in the process and deliver additional environmental services

If agroforestry seems to be a "silver bullet", why is it not applied ubiquitously already? Actually, most farming systems before the mechanization of agriculture included trees. With the increasing size of agricultural machines, most trees have been removed and farming systems as we have known it in the last decades mostly focussed on short term financial returns, rather than on long term productivity from healthy systems. Currently and thankfully, awareness regarding the benefits of agroforestry rises strongly. The adoption lags behind though as current farmers have not learned how to cultivate trees within their farming system and because the required upfront investments as well as the unfavorable political conditions hamper the adoption of agroforestry.

Are VIVO Carbon's agroforestry systems also monocultures? No, there are always at least two cultures on a given plot, the trees and the agricultural field or grassland crop, such as grains, vegetables, meadow or pasture. Even if only one tree species (we always plant several varieties of them) is planted, many other plants can be tolerated under the trees, which is not an option in conventional agricultural systems. Therefore, agroforestry areas only need to be kept free of unwanted vegetation (aka weeds) only in the year of planting which can hence contribute to valuable wild plant populations growing on farm land.

WOOD HARVESTING AND USE

What's the logic behind harvesting the trees instead of letting them grow, and store all the CO2? The trees are planted relatively densely (average of 1 tree per 5m²), to maximise CO2 capture within the next few years. This means that after approximately 8 years the trees would either need to be thinned or harvested. We are convinced that wood is an ideal and versatile raw material for many products, which are currently relying on fossil fuels. We think that specifically the building sector should use more wood to replace CO2-intensive materials like concrete, bricks and steel. If wood is used in the building sector, it is usually sequestering the carbon for decades. This means by harvesting the trees and using the wood at the right place, the climate effect is doubled. Carbon is sequestered and additionally, fossile CO2 emissions are prevented. Even better: poplar trees regrow from the roots after their first harvest and can be harvested a second and a third time after they have reached the required size.

​What can poplar wood be used for? Poplar wood is basically suitable for a wide range of purposes, especially in the area of ​​material use. Due to the long fibers, poplar wood is relatively stable in relation to its weight and can already be used in the wood materials industry for a wide range of products. For example, for chipboard, plywood, OSB and MDF boards.

FARMERS

How are farmers involved? VIVO Carbon offers a fair and transparent cooperation model to farmers. We envisage to demonstrate the viability of agroforestry systems on a commercial scale, and encourage farmers to realize future tree plantings on their own account. The specific land area on which trees are planted by VIVO Carbon remains in full ownership of the farmers. Also, the farmers are always participating by gaining a certain share of the harvest sales of their respective agroforestry projects, depending on partial investment participation and/or provision of land at a discount from the expected financial site productivity.

Why don't farmers install agroforestry systems themselves? Due to undesirable political framework conditions and hence lack of financial investment into agroforestry, it is usually not an attractive business-case for many farms yet. Also, many farmers are hesitant to plant trees due to their lack of tree-related expertise. VIVO Carbon bridges this gap by realizing the projects together with the farmers, thereby transmitting know how and best practices and offering them a fair compensation for the provision of suitable land as well as a share on the wood returns.

CLIMATE IMPACT

How quickly and over which period of time is CO2 captured? Already in the first year, poplar trees can grow up to four meters high. An average of 2-3 meters is usually achieved in well managed agroforestry systems. Already in the first 8 years, an annual average of 20 tons (20,000kg) of CO2 can be captured by the trees per hectare (10,000m²) of tree area. This results in 300 - 400 tons of CO2 captured on one hectare of tree-area over 15-20 years. Even after this period, the trees are vital and continue to grow, capturing CO2, but VIVOCarbon is not calculating the climate effect beyond 15-20 years.

Which is more important for climate impact, the number of trees or the tree covered area? The tree covered area, if it is ensured that canopy closure is reached within a few years. After a relatively short phase, in which growth tends to be per plant, the total growth and thus the CO2 sequestration is based on the tree covered area. This means that a very dense planting of tree-strips, with a large number of trees does not usually have a greater effect on the climate.

What does dry matter mean? The term dry matter is leveling out the differing amounts of moisture content in wood. Usually, fresh wood holds about 50% dry matter and 50% water. For example if we anticipate a growth of 10 tons of dry matter, this means the respective fresh wood weight is 20 tons. In our calculation we always talk about dry matter, as this is the correct reference to calculate the sequestered CO2. One ton of wood dry matter always contains the carbon from 1.8 tons of CO2.

How can 1 ton of dry wood store 1.8 tons of CO2? To be accurate, it i not the CO2 that is stored directly, but only the carbon from the CO2. The O2 (oxygen) is released back into the air. Dry wood usually is made up of approximately 50% carbon, 42% oxygen, 5% hydrogen and some other elements. This means that there is more carbon in dry wood than in the same weight of CO2 (which mainly consists of oxygen).

What potential do agroforestry systems have to help agriculture adapt to climate change? According to IPCC, agroforestry systems are the most effective concrete measure "to mitigation, adaptation, combating desertification and land degradation, and enhancing food security" (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/4.-SPM_Approved_Microsite_FINAL.pdf, table on page 28)

FINANCING AND REVENUES

Does VIVO Carbon generate profits by selling climate protection services? Yes, we plan to operate agroforestry projects in a profitable way. We strongly believe that only with the support of profitable business-models, the huge potential of agriculture to fight climate collapse can be activated. Until we have planted enough agroforestry systems to refinance the new plantings, we need the financial reward of climate certificates to get the ball rolling. We want to show that agroforestry holds the highly accessible potential to build profitable business models that can scale and drive planetary regeneration.

How is the appropriate use of potential proceeds ensured? As a non-profit company, donations and all proceeds from the sale of CO₂ credits, as well as future net proceeds from wood sales, are used to counteract climate change. This is ensured by the binding VIVO Carbon statutes and confirmed by the tax office.

Are agroforestry systems not funded through EU-payments? Since 2023, the European agricultural subsidy schemes include a definition for agroforestry systems in Germany which means that a farmer can register them and get paid for planting them. However, the proposed payments are extremely low (200€/ha tree area), and are not covering establishment costs to even a minor degree. Additionally, the subsidy requirements for an agroforestry system are restrictively defined, amongst others including a minimum distance of tree lines to the field boundary and to each other of 20m which make it very impractical and impossible for many farmers aiming for agroforestry to get paid through these schemes. Therefore also, many existing German agroforestry systems are not recognised by the new agroforestry subsidy definition. Nonetheless, whenever there are suitable funding schemes for agroforestry, they will be included in VIVO Carbon's planning process, and ideally increase the climate and biodiversity impact of your CO2 credits. ​

CREDITS AND CERTIFICATION

Are the CO2 credits offered officially certified e.g. VCS (Verified Carbon Standard) or Gold Standard? Currently there are no official standards for European agroforestry systems. Climate impacts from land use change are counted towards national targets under current legislation and cannot be "privatized" as things stand. It is also possible that climate benefits from wood utilization will be counted toward respective sector CO2 reduction targets (e.g. into the construction sector). In our opinion, it is crucial that trees are planted now, even if the exact official attribution of climate change mitigation is not yet defined. We plan to support the development of appropriate certification schemes for agroforestry in Europe by actively engaging in the definition of effective standards.

Why are the CO2 credits sold ex-ante and not after the CO2 has been sequestered by the trees? Only by selling the CO2 credits ex-ante, VIVO Carbon can pre-finance the projects and put them into practice together with the farmers. Our benchmark for the number of CO2 certificates sold is the amount of CO2 that is captured by the trees over the contract period with farmers, which is normally 15-25 years. After that, the agroforestry systems are expected to continue to be operated by the farmers and provide additional climate protection benefits, for which VIVO Carbon will not sell additional certificates.

Aren’t CO2 credits just a modern form of indulgence trade? Yes and no. Our first priority as a global community is to drastically cut fossil CO2 emissions now. There is no viable scenario to continue burning fossil fuels and compensate through CO2 certificates. However, there are several arguments, that if done right, CO2-credits are a reasonable instrument: Individual actors such as companies are not in the position to reduce their fossil CO2 emissions to zero, as their dependency on fossil fuels is systemic and needs to be solved at a national or international level. Therefore, compensation can be a respectable option for emissions that can not be avoided at a reasonable effort. To maintain a decent standard of living, we need to urgently scale more climate friendly value chains that can substitute fossil carbon. Due to its availability and size, the CO2 finance market can help answer the urgency behind the development of such value chains. Our society needs to rapidly develop solutions to achieve negative CO2 emissions. Without negative emissions that kick in within less than 30 years, there is no chance to avoid large-scale collapse due to climate breakdown according to most IPCC scenarios. We think natural sinks should be highly favored above any technical (and therefore risky) solutions when confronting the urgency of our situation. CO2 credits can offer financing the scale and speed needed when building up natural sinks (and regenerating ecosystems in parallel).

VIVO Carbon CONCEPT

How does VIVO Carbon work, in short? Planning of agroforestry project with a farmer open to plant it on their land Sale of CO2 credits to finance the planting, tree maintenance and the compensation of the farmer for providing the land Contractual agreement with farmer and planting of trees with annual reporting towards buyers of respective CO2 credits First harvest after approximately eight years and sale of wood for utilization in the building sector, thereby maximizing climate benefits (as opposed to burning the wood for energy consumption, which counts a renewable energy source but shortens the CO2 sequestration time span) Regrowth of trees from remaining stumps, enabling a next harvest after another cycle of roughly eight years

Who runs VIVO Carbon? The VIVO Carbon initiative was developed out of the Lignovis GmbH. Our team therefore has almost 20 years experience and planted more than 25 million trees throughout Europe. Lignovis is not a share-holder of VIVO Carbon though. Additionally, we onboarded team members with expertise around CO2 finance, organizational development and storytelling. We have been considerably supported in bringing VIVO Carbon to life through a grant from the city of Hamburg (Investitions- und Förder-Bank IFB), through an "Update-Deutschland Hamburg" project funding and via a grant from the Eva-Mayr-Stihl Foundation. Finally in December 2023, VIVO Carbon was founded as a "gemeinnützige GmbH", a German legal form which basically is a combination of a non-profit with a commercial entity. As a registered non-profit organization VIVO Carbon will irrevocably ensure that all potential profits are reinvested to benefit environment- and climate protection, animal welfare, education and development cooperation.

Will VIVO Carbon work exclusively with Lignovis for project execution? No, VIVO Carbon plans to cooperate with different service providers and eventually host a platform to finance climate-efficient agroforestry projects in Germany and Europe. However, there are synergies between VIVO Carbon and Lignovis. In the beginning, most projects will be practically implemented (planted and managed) by Lignovis in cooperation with the respective farmers. This creates efficiencies and planning reliability for VIVO Carbon. As VIVO Carbon grows, Lignovis will be one service provider among others.

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