Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is at the core of a new Gold Standard certification, in which certified projects must contribute to at least three SDGs. The newly launched Gold Standard for Global Goals will unlock billions of dollars of funding needed to scale-up climate and development projects around the globe, with a broad range of applications.
Gold Standard has long set a benchmark for climate interventions, ensuring the highest levels of environmental integrity and sustainable development for projects in carbon markets. Now with a new, ambitious and interconnected climate and development agenda shaped by the outcomes of the Paris Agreement, Gold Standard for the Global Goals will certify a range of independently-verified SDG impacts in addition to its flagship carbon credits. The new standard has been introduced in a bid to accelerate progress toward climate security and sustainable development.
"The SDGs are becoming a huge priority for a range of public and private sector organisations, but accurately measuring and reporting progress has presented a major challenge." says Marion Verles, Chief Executive Officer of Gold Standard. "Our new standard quantifies and certifies the many additional benefits Gold Standard projects deliver beyond carbon mitigation – for example by providing access to clean energy and water, creating jobs, improving health or protecting natural habitats – providing those who run or fund projects with new opportunities to measure and report their impact."
"South Pole Group is very excited about the publication of the Gold Standard for the Global Goals, which will allow private and public entities to certify a wide range of sustainability benefits and thereby contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals," says Martin Stadelmann, Director of Public Advisory at South Pole Group.
The new standard is released in conjunction with an exciting innovation co-initiated and co-developed by South Pole Group under a Climate-KIC project. The Gold Standard for Sustainable Urban Development will allow cities to receive certification for their entire sustainable development and climate change programs; such certification will improve communication of cities with their own citizens, national governments and international institutions, and thereby trigger investments from both public and private sources.
"South Pole Group is pleased and proud to be the first company offering program development services to cities for certification under the Gold Standard for Sustainable Urban Development," Martin Stadelmann. "We will also continue to develop high quality projects and programs in other areas under the Gold Standard for the Global Goals."
The Gold Standard for the Global Goals are shaping the future of climate projects. Under this new standard, not only will projects meet the highest level of environmental integrity, they will also foreground key social issues that the world must address. By creating a result-based measure for sustainable development, Gold Standard help to de-risk climate investment and manage complexities of large-scale multi-intervention programmes, unlocking the financial potential of sustainable development programmes for a better future for all.
For more information, read the full press release here and visit the Gold Standard website.
