The low-carbon label is an innovative tool designed to encourage and reward local actions for the climate. It can promote the emergence of local actions to combat the greenhouse effect and CO2 sequestration, thereby contributing to achieving the climate goals of the National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC). It ensures the environmental quality and transparency of field projects and offers prospects of remuneration for these actions by public or private entities wishing to support them.
The low-carbon label is the first climate certification framework adopted by France. It is aimed at all actors wishing to develop local projects for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or carbon sequestration, by offering certification of these reductions to attract new funders.
It is also aimed at all those—local authorities, companies, or citizens—who want to support positive climate projects whose quality is guaranteed, for example, to offset their residual emissions.
The label creates a simple, cost-effective, and rigorous framework to ensure the reality of emission reductions and the environmental quality of projects. It will help locally support the ecological transition by offering remuneration prospects to local actors wishing to engage in climate action.
Even before its creation, pilot field projects helped test the low-carbon label. This was the case with the project by the Free Management Association of the Forests of the Land of Peyre in Lozère. In 2015, with support from La Poste Group, this association embarked on a reforestation and afforestation project of 36 hectares of pine forests heavily degraded by a storm and snow, using varied species. The project, in addition to its benefits for biodiversity and the local wood economy, will sequester several thousand tons of CO2 over the coming decades.
The label was developed with numerous actors who, for several years and with the help of the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE), have been developing methods for accounting emission reductions in agricultural and forestry sectors. The Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition notably wishes to thank I4CE, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME), the project accelerator EIT Climate-KIC, the Public Interest Group (GIP), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of the Massif Central, La Poste, the National Forestry Property Centre (CNPF), the Livestock Institute (IDELE), and the National Interprofessional Center for the Dairy Economy (CNIEL).
The implementation of the label and its development will continue in consultation with stakeholders and civil society.
