Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) have become an important tool to tackle climate change. They explicitly refer to actions meant to foster conservation and restoration of ecosystems and to improve land management activities, aimed at carbon storage and/or avoiding greenhouse gas emissions. Among NCS, REDD± (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), created under the United Nations (UN) framework, is an important and recognized mitigation and adaptation instrument.
Lately, REDD± has received growing interest of companies seeking to reduce or compensate their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), under both voluntary and compliance mechanisms. This initiative can also provide co-benefits such as local development, biodiversity conservation and social inclusiveness, which can then support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda. The achievement of the SDGs Agenda is at the core of Eni's new mission and is reflected in its business model. The company has pledged to actively contribute to the achievement of all 17 SDGs, identifying SDGs 13, 15, 7, 12, 9, 10, 5 and 17 as a priority to be addressed. From these, Climate Action (13) and Life on Land (15) are strictly related to NCS and REDD±, and this highlights their importance towards Eni's SDGs achievement.
Eni is committed to reach complete carbon neutrality by 2050. In its decarbonization strategy, the company has pledge to offset more than 6 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of CO2 by 2024 and more than 40MTPA by 2050 through REDD± initiatives. At its core, REDD± was designed as a tool to mitigate climate change. However, it can also be used to address important SDGs, given the numerous synergies between them and the forest sector, representing an opportunity towards business sustainability.
Energy companies have developed proactive decarbonization strategies, some of them pledging a "Net-Zero" emissions target. To achieve net zero, companies need to balance out any remaining GHG emissions (the so called "hard-to-abate") with carbon dioxide offsets. Unsustainable forestry and agriculture activities have contributed to a large part of anthropogenic GHG emissions responsible for temperature increase. Nowadays, countries and the private sector companies can strongly contribute to avoid the emissions caused by forest loss. That is the case because, more recently, the land use sector has been recognized as a feasible tool to mitigate climate change, known under the umbrella term of "Natural Climate Solutions" (NCS). NCS encompasses 20 activities focused on the land sector, called "natural pathways" [1]. They are related to the conservation of forests and wetlands, as well as reforestation and ecosystem restoration activities, therefore, presenting a big potential to address climate change mitigation.
