Purpose of the Peatland Standard

The Peatland Standard provides a process to quantify ecosystem improvements from peatland restoration projects in Ireland. This process follows voluntary market principles and is designed to provide robust, high-quality certificates to provide a return for a project’s capital and management requirements.

This is a consultation phase for Version 1.0 and as such comments are invited. Read the public consultation document here.

Links are provided below to the documents, templates and calculators which are required for the process.

Pilot Phase & Further Development

Pilot projects in 2024 & 2025 are intended to prove concept, initiate investment, provide reference sites for future projects and lead to further development of the Standard and its process.

Ecosystem quantification methodologies are anticipated to further develop over the short and medium term, particularly in terms of streamlining biodiversity and water services quantification with ongoing research projects and modelling alignment with the results-based scorecard system.

Who is behind the Peatland Standard

Peatland Finance Ireland is a not-for-profit CLG set up to accelerate peatland restoration in Ireland. It has been funded from state and corporate sources and includes a wide range of stakeholders from government, semi-state and community.

Key Documents

• Public Consultation Document

• Summary of the Peatland Standard & Ecosystem Certificates     

• The Peatland Standard of Ireland

• Field Protocol    

• Frequently Asked Questions

Detail - Peatland Standard Templates & Calculators

• Pilot Project Registry                                                                 

• Additionality & Leakage Tests

• Additionality Legal Test Tool

• Emission Scoping Calculator

• Emission Reduction (HU, VU, SC) Calculator    

• Ecosystem Risk Register        

• Ecosystem Services Calculator 

• Ground Survey & Peat Depth Record  

• Risk Assessment

• Project Design                 

• Restoration, Management & Monitoring Plan

• Commitment Statement

Case Studies

• Summary of Case Studies and Outputs

• Case study calculators available on request

Background Documents

• Summary of Carbon Methodology

• Background Carbon Science (Data used for derivation of Indicative Emission Factors) & Transition Calculators

Acknowledgements

The Peatland Standard has been strongly influenced by the UK Peatland Code, Valuta voor Veen and Moorfutures. The Standard is indebted to assistance from the IUCN UK and with kind permission of the National Trust for Scotland, many of the project plan templates have been based on the UK Peatland Code. The Peatland Standard has embraced the wide range of peatland types and land use changes in Ireland and has been enabled by the open and generous peatland research community. This has allowed development to focus on wider ecosystem services and benefits as well as emission reductions. The Peatland Standard uses the international Core Carbon Principles (CCP) as set by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) for the supply and use of credits.

Web pages to be constructed

• Historic Monument Consultation - For further guidance see the links on the Peatland Archaeology page on the website.