Amplifying Social Impact: Redefining Benefit Sharing in Sustainable Forest Project Design
In addressing ecological imbalances, the role of social constructs on-the-ground in forest projects cannot be overlooked. Often, the root cause of environmental degradation lies in dysfunctional social structures. By changing these structures, we can significantly alter ecological outcomes. However, traditional benefit sharing approaches in many forest and nature-based projects often shy away from tackling these deep-rooted social issues, viewing them as too challenging or beyond the project's scope and the project proponents’ influence.
Having done more than 100 forest project assessments and due diligence, Xilva challenges this notion.
What is benefit sharing?
Benefit sharing in forest and nature-based projects involves the equitable distribution of both monetary and non-monetary benefits derived from reducing carbon emissions through forest conservation and management. These benefits can include direct payments, capacity-building initiatives, infrastructure development, and access to resources such as seeds and equipment (Forest Carbon Partnership) (CIFOR-ICRAF). It ensures that all stakeholders, particularly Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs), are fairly compensated for their role in these efforts.
Effective benefit-sharing arrangements require the active participation of all stakeholders, including local communities, indigenous groups, government agencies, and private sector entities. Stakeholder consultations are crucial in designing these mechanisms to ensure they are fair and meet the needs of all involved parties.
A broken top-down approach
When evaluating the Project Design, Safeguards and Impact areas using the Xilva GRADE framework, our team finds that most benefit sharing models aim to engage all land-based actors, particularly the marginalized, by offering benefits from the project to ensure successful outcomes for the main project sponsors, funders, or off-takers. While commendable, this top-down approach fails to address what is truly broken; it fails to address the root causes of ecological problems, providing only a temporary fix rather than a lasting solution.
Most benefit sharing, as it stands today, functions as a mechanism to safeguard against delivery risks, rather than as a tool for systemic change. This approach is akin to applying a bandage to a wound without treating the underlying cause. To create lasting ecological balance, we must delve deeper into the social challenges that contribute to environmental issues.
Raise the bar of Impact
Many forest and nature-based projects start to fix the problem (e.g. deforestation) by designing the intervention type (e.g. reforestation), without ever truly understanding the social challenges (e.g. poverty) that led to the problem.
By embedding benefit sharing deeply within the understanding of social challenges, such as poverty, that lead to issues like deforestation, we can elevate our approach from merely mitigating risks to actively transforming the underlying social problems. This shift ensures long-term success and prosperity for all stakeholders. This isn't just theoretical; there are practical steps to achieve this.
By prioritizing benefit sharing in the Project Design phase, we change its role from a peripheral safeguard to a central driver of sustainable and inclusive development. This transformative approach not only addresses immediate project goals to deliver ecological and carbon benefits but also fosters lasting social and ecological harmony.
Benefit sharing as a central role
Typically, projects are designed first, followed by outreach and the creation of a benefit sharing model as a secondary safeguard and an afterthought. This approach is limited in its effectiveness.
Some of the most successful and stable projects we have seen prioritize right-holders' needs from the outset, integrating these needs into the project design phase.
By reclassifying the importance of social outcomes, we elevate benefit sharing to a central role in project design. This means designing projects around the synergies and creation of tangible benefits for all actors involved, not just sharing benefits as a secondary consideration. This shift ensures that social challenges are addressed head-on, leading to more sustainable and successful ecological outcomes.
Conclusion
Reclassifying benefit sharing to a position of prominence in project design is not just a theoretical exercise—it is a practical and necessary approach to creating lasting ecological and social change. By addressing the root social causes of environmental problems, we can design projects that foster long-term success and abundance for all stakeholders. It’s time to elevate social outcomes and reimagine the role of benefit sharing in our environmental projects.
