Did you know?
Kenya now requires at least 40% of earnings from land-based carbon projects to reach the host community by law — yet most of the global market still sends communities a sliver.
So where does the rest go? And what would it look like if the law were a floor, not a ceiling?
Read the full storyFour failures
Where the value goes missing.
Communities receive a sliver
Only a small fraction of carbon revenue typically reaches the people stewarding the land. Brokers, validators, and platforms absorb the rest — and Kenya passed a 40% community-share law precisely because the market wasn't delivering.
Carbon rights get assigned away
Project developers — often based offshore — claim title to carbon generated on community and conservancy land, with consent processes that are rushed or opaque.
Methodology is a black box
How tonnes are counted, verified, and discounted is buried in proprietary docs. Communities can't audit what they can't see.
Verification crowds out trust
Heavy MRV costs squeeze project economics, pushing developers to cut community share before they cut anything else.
Where the money goes
One tonne, five hands.
A representative breakdown of the voluntary-carbon shilling — based on industry reporting. Numbers vary, but the pattern is consistent: under the old model, the community came last.
Kenya's 2023 law flips the order — community share first, at a 40% floor for land-based projects. GreenPesa's commitment is to meet and exceed it: ops and verification structured around the community share, every deduction published.
Equity principles
Four commitments we won't bend.
Carbon rights stay with communities
Legal title to the carbon remains with the household, cooperative, conservancy, or community land trust — never transferred to a developer or intermediary.
Revenue share is published before the project starts
Every project publishes its full revenue waterfall — community share, ops, validation, reserves — in plain language, anchored to a Community Development Agreement, before issuance.
MRV is open and auditable
Methodology, monitoring data, and validation reports are open to communities and third parties. No black boxes.
Decisions sit with the people on the land
Project governance is led by community committees — with technical and legal support, not the other way around.