Climate

We're All in This Together

What's at Stake

Drought. Flood. Shorter growing seasons. Economic insecurity. Famine. For farming and forest communities around the world, the impacts of climate change are already real rather than hypothetical. In today's hyper-connected world, fighting climate change and building resilience to its impact are urgent priorities for us all.

Forests: Our Best Defense Against Climate Change

Deforestation and forest degradation account for 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In recognition of this fact, the historic United Nations Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 emphasizes the critical importance of conserving forests, reforesting degraded land, and sustainably managing forests.

Agriculture and Climate Change

Agriculture is the driver of an estimated 80 percent of tropical deforestation—and farming activities cause an estimated 10-12 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Feeding 9.8 billion people by 2050 without overwhelming the planet is one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

Our Work

Our Work in Climate

The Rainforest Alliance works with rural communities, businesses, and governments around the world to advance climate-smart land management and sustainable economic development through training, carbon project validation/verification, and participation in international climate frameworks like REDD+.

Building Climate Resilience, From Day One

For the past 30 years, we’ve worked to support our greatest climate allies—strong forests.

Communities Fight Climate Change

By protecting forests, communities create “carbon sinks”. With third-party verification, they can then sell their carbon credits on the international market.

Deforestation and Emissions 101

Forests are our most powerful tool for storing carbon. Here's a simple primer on the mechanics of deforestation and carbon sequestration.

Climate-smart coffee farming

A group of Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, have adopted our agroforestry model to restore the health of their land and build resilience to climate change. They're even generating carbon credits for reforesting: the group will likely remove 130,000 tons of emissions from the atmosphere over 30 years—that’s about the equivalent of the annual emissions for 27,000 cars.

Learn More

Learn more about how we are working to achieve our mission.

View our approach

Our Impact

Our innovative carbon projects give indigenous and forest communities an economic incentive to protect their forests by generating payments for avoiding or removing emissions through forest conservation or reforestation. Our certification division has validated and/or verified carbon projects covering 12.5 million acres.

8,794,000 cars

equivalent annual emissions of greenhouse gases removed or avoided by projects we verify and validate

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Rainforest Alliance has validated and/or verified 140+ forest carbon projects around the world. Through these projects, we have verified the reduction and/or removal of greenhouse gases equal to the annual emissions of 8,794,000 cars.

See Impact Dashboard

76,490 students

worldwide have studied our climate and environmental curriculum

Educating Future Climate Leaders

We've trained 6,053 teachers to use our learning tools and to lead students in creating climate preparedness projects in their communities. In addition to in-person training, 4.5 million people have visited our website to view and use our curriculum.

See More Impacts

Learn more ways we are achieving real results.

View our impact dashboard

Get Involved

Join us to help rebalance the earth.