Did you know?
When you buy a carbon credit, less than one in ten dollars reaches the people growing or protecting the carbon.
So where does the rest go? And what would it look like if it didn't?
Read the full storyFour failures
Where the value goes missing.
Communities receive a sliver
Less than 10% of carbon revenue typically reaches the people stewarding the land. Brokers, validators, and platforms absorb the rest.
Carbon rights get assigned away
Project developers — often based offshore — claim title to carbon generated on community 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 dollar — based on industry reporting. Numbers vary, but the pattern is consistent.
GreenKwacha's commitment is to invert this — community share first, ops and verification structured around it, 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, or village — 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, 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.