Reforestation Carbon Credits in Brazil: How Verra VM0047 Works for ARR Projects

If you are weighing a native forest restoration project in Brazil as a carbon asset, the first Verra methodology you will meet is VM0047, its rulebook for afforestation, reforestation and revegetation (ARR). This guide explains how VM0047 ARR works in practice: who qualifies, how the baseline is set by comparing your land with similar land nearby, what gets monitored, and what the registry charges.

What VM0047 is

VM0047 is a Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology for projects that establish, increase or restore vegetative cover. The active version is v1.1, in force since 14 May 2025. Version 1.0 ran from 28 September 2023 to 13 May 2025. The credits it produces are removals, not avoided emissions.

Verra’s methodology page says the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) approved both v1.0 and v1.1 as meeting its Core Carbon Principles.

Verra used VM0047 to consolidate older ARR approaches. In October 2026 it released guidance for projects moving to VM0047 from CDM methodologies such as AR-ACM0003 and AR-AMS0007. The file is labelled a final draft, so its details may still change.

How VM0047 ARR works: two ways to count carbon

The methodology offers two quantification approaches. Each piece of land picks one at the start and keeps it for the whole crediting period. If a project uses both, the areas must be at least 10 meters apart.

Area-based approach. Most restoration projects take this route: pasture turned back into forest, or more carbon in existing forest that has not been managed for wood products in the past ten years. Biomass is measured in field plots and scaled up to the project area.

Census-based approach. This covers dispersed planting, such as trees on cropland or in windbreaks, where the original land use continues. Every planted tree, shrub or bamboo clump is counted and tracked individually. Density cannot exceed 50 planting units per hectare. The baseline is zero, because without the project those trees would not exist. An area-based project planting fewer than 50 units per hectare is excluded, because it should use this route instead.

The performance benchmark: the core of the area-based baseline

VM0047 replaces the old argument about what would have happened without the project with data. It compares regrowth in your project with regrowth on matched control plots outside it, using a satellite-derived vegetation measure called the stocking index (SI).

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Appendix 1 of the methodology spells out the process:

• Draw a random sample of at least 30 project plots, each between 0.01 and 10 hectares.
• Define a donor pool for controls: same biome-level ecoregion, same land tenure type (public or private at minimum), the same jurisdiction, the same government tree-planting incentives, and no more than 100 km from each project plot.
• Match controls to project plots using SI values from at least three points in time over the decade before the start date.
• Accept the match only if the standardized difference of means for each covariate is 0.25 or less.

The benchmark is dynamic. At every verification the project must show, through a statistical Z test, that its SI change differs significantly from the controls. Credits come from the gap. If the surrounding landscape starts regrowing on its own, the baseline rises and credits shrink.

SI data must have pixels of 30 m or finer and be available at least once a year. Verra has vetted data providers for SI, but projects may hire any provider.

Who VM0047 applies to

• Start date. It is whichever comes first: the day site preparation began or the land use change date.
• Time zero inventory. If you clear invasive grass or prepare the soil first, field plots must be measured before that work, and no more than two years before the start date. If you skip this step and the work disturbs soil carbon or dead wood, the project is ineligible.
• Recent forest management. Land that met the definition of managed forest at any point in the ten years before the start date is out.
• Clearing. Removing existing woody vegetation cannot involve timber harvest or degrade native ecosystems.
• Wetlands and organic soils. VM0047 covers only aboveground biomass there. Other carbon pools need a separate wetland methodology.
• Leakage. Area-based projects must estimate displaced cattle or crops with module VMD0054. It cannot be assumed negligible.

On the area-based route, additionality also requires a regulatory surplus test. If the project earns income beyond carbon credits, it also needs an investment analysis under tool VT0008.

Step by step: assessing a restoration project

Take a hypothetical 400 hectare degraded pasture in the Atlantic Forest, to be restored with native seedlings and assisted natural regeneration.

1. Check land history. Pull satellite imagery for the last ten years. Managed forest or recent timber clearing ends the analysis.
2. Measure before you touch the soil. Install field plots for all significant carbon pools before site preparation.
3. Test the benchmark early. Ask an SI provider for a preliminary donor pool. If pasture within 100 km is already regrowing fast, the margin for credits may be thin.
4. Model ex ante. The project description must project removals for the full crediting period with growth models and an uncertainty deduction of at least 10%.
5. Budget registry fees. Verra’s fee schedule v1.1, dated 27 July 2026, charges USD 1,500 for pipeline listing, USD 3,750 per registration request, USD 5,000 per verification review (half credited against future issuance) and USD 0.23 per VCU issued. Opening a registry account costs USD 750, and keeping it costs USD 750 a year. VVB audit fees are negotiated separately and usually cost more.
6. Plan monitoring. Field biomass parameters must be measured at least every five years, SI data arrive annually, and additionality is retested at each verification.

Common mistakes

• Planting before measuring. Clearing or plowing without a time zero inventory is the most frequent way to lose eligibility.
• Selling ex ante numbers as a forecast. Issuance depends on the benchmark measured later, and it can move against you.
• Ignoring the neighborhood. A project surrounded by natural regrowth may earn few credits even if its trees grow well.
• Guessing the crediting period. Version 5 of the VCS Program changed the crediting period rules. Check the current VCS Standard rather than relying on older figures.
• Missing transition deadlines. Projects still on v1.0 had to be listed by 31 December 2025 and must be registered by 31 December 2026.

How this connects to Brazil’s regulated market

Law 15.042/2024 created the Brazilian Emissions Trading System (SBCE). Its art. 46 says that restoring Permanent Preservation Areas and Legal Reserves can generate carbon credits. Under art. 44, a voluntary credit counts as a CRVE, the system’s tradable unit, only if it meets three conditions. It must come from a methodology accredited by the SBCE managing body, be verified by an independent entity and be entered in the SBCE central registry.

VM0047 has not been accredited. At the latest update of the ESG Minute SBCE Scoreboard, the rules that will govern methodologies were still pending or in public consultation. Today, a VM0047 credit is a voluntary market asset.

What to do now

• Download VM0047 v1.1 and read Section 4 and Appendix 1 before signing anything with a developer.
• Request a preliminary performance benchmark from an SI provider to test the economics.
• If you inherited a project under AR-ACM0003, read Verra’s transition guidance and talk to your VVB.
• Follow the SBCE Scoreboard for the act that will accredit methodologies.

Sources

• Verra: VM0047 Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (methodology page)
• Verra: VM0047 v1.1 full text
• Verra: Guidance for Projects Transitioning to VM0047 (October 2026, final draft)
• Verra: Program Fee Schedule v1.1
• Planalto: Lei 15.042/2024

Read next

• Brazil SBCE tracker: every act with its primary source
• Free PDF guides on carbon markets

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