Analytical report on land-based offset projects | Large-scale land acquisitions for carbon offsetting: Green grabbing or just transition?

With demand for land remaining high in the agricultural sector, large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) continue to reshape rural landscapes and communities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In the last few years, however, a critical but often underestimated new force has added further pressure to land: the growth of carbon markets. Their expansion – in particular of the voluntary carbon market (VCM) – has picked up pace in the recent decade, driven by the implementation of nature-based solutions as carbon offsets in the Global South, although their integrity has been called into question due to overestimation of emission reductions.

In this report, we investigate the rising pressure from LSLAs for carbon offsetting, covering both domestic and transnational deals, and examine their role in driving land acquisition. Analysing deals in which carbon is removed or emissions are avoided or reduced for the explicit purpose of generating carbon credits for sale to entities seeking to offset their emissions, we scrutinise whether the narrative that carbon markets benefit both the planet and its people holds true.

Our findings show that while such land-based investments can generate environmental and socioeconomic co-benefits, they require extensive land resources, which are frequently obtained through the acquisition of large tracts of land that are seldom genuinely idle. This practice poses significant risks to the land rights of smallholders, pastoralists, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities that depend on secure access to land for their livelihoods.

Crucially, we argue that without rigorous global and national safeguards, carbon offset projects based on LSLAs risk exacerbating social and environmental injustices that occurred in the wake of past waves of land acquisitions in other sectors. While acknowledging that citing all necessary reforms for the VCM extends beyond the scope of our analysis, we present four key policy recommendations based on the documented evidence – and conclude that alongside the urgent need for profound reform in the VCM and stringent eligibility criteria for compliance markets and UN mechanisms, a just transition must more thoroughly recognise the ownership and decision-making authority of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in climate mitigation activities.

Authors: Christoph Kubitza, Quentin Grislain, Nikka Rivera, Gabi Sonderegger, Jann Lay

Download the full report as well as the executive summary in English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian at the top of the page.