Italy has 10 million hectares of forests that can now benefit from companies that want to contribute to contrasting climate change with virtuous actions carried out by improving our green heritage. With this decree, signed by the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida, together with the Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the “National Registry of Voluntary Carbon Credits” is established, implementing a legislative initiative by the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Luca De Carlo. Italy thus gains another tool to combat the phenomenon of so-called “greenwashing” and that can significantly improve forest management.

The approval of the guidelines sets the requirements for registering “carbon credits” in the registry. These certificates correspond to the capacity to store carbon dioxide based on a controlled and certified forest area care project, following transparent and reliable mechanisms. The guidelines stipulate that the carbon credits to be registered correspond to:

• A management of the forest area that brings additional activities compared to the mere conservation required by the current and already mandatory legislation;
• A forest area management project of at least 20 years, certified by an accredited third party (not unlike what happens for DOP and IGP, and organic production).

The generated credit can be transferred to third parties after at least five years from its start and after registration in the Registry maintained by Crea. In this way, value can be generated for the owners and managers of the forest area, as well as for local communities and the State. This measure aims to improve territorial protection and addresses the needs of inland areas, which can have new partners to support the management policies of the forest heritage.