Innovative European Carbon Standard | Promoting Local Projects

Carbon projects connected to business realities

By focusing on geographical and sectoral proximity, Rainbow helps organizations go beyond simple “offsetting”: they contribute to financing low-carbon projects directly linked to their activities, business challenges, or local territories. This provides a concrete way to align reduction targets with contribution actions, which are often treated separately.

Projects certified by Rainbow are primarily located in France, but also in several European countries such as Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with a few recent initiatives in Africa. Most projects focus on carbon avoidance, the circular economy, or breakthrough technologies, delivering measurable and immediate impacts while meeting verification and transparency requirements.

Carbon market: beyond Nature-based Solutions

When we think of carbon credits, our first reaction is often to imagine a vast reforestation project in the Amazon. In the collective imagination, a carbon project is primarily an action to sequester carbon through a nature-based approach. However, the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) has evolved significantly in recent years: today, there are many types of projects generating various kinds of credits, with diverse impacts that go far beyond the simple carbon metric.

Better understanding carbon project typologies

While the distinction between avoidance credits (preventing the emission of new tons of CO₂e) and carbon sequestration credits (capturing and storing existing carbon) is now well understood, differentiating between the various project typologies remains less straightforward and the importance of local anchoring is often underestimated.

To help provide clarity, ClimateSeed has published detailed guides that break down these two major families of projects:

Avoidance projects

Removal projects

These guides shed light on the typologies within each category and explain how both approaches should be pursued together rather than at the expense of one another as they are equally essential to any net-zero strategy.

Diverse projects, balanced impacts

Beyond the type of credit, other essential dimensions must be considered in your contribution:

Project typology: While nature-based projects remain predominant, other typologies should also be taken into account: community, technological, or hybrid projects, whose impacts can complement those generated by nature-based action.

Impact location: The carbon market relies on a fundamental principle: one ton of CO₂e emitted at one point on the globe can be “offset” by a contribution action carried out elsewhere. This explains the historical predominance of projects in the Global South, where natural resources enable a large number of carbon actions. However, no type of project or region should be considered inherently superior to another.

Rainbow: a rigorous & transparent carbon standard

The voluntary carbon market is under pressure: increasing numbers of actors, risks of greenwashing, sometimes opaque methodologies, and legacy standards considered too cumbersome or outdated… Companies are calling for greater transparency, scientific rigor, and traceability.

Rainbow aims to provide a robust and credible framework for market participants. The standard is supported by a multidisciplinary team of scientists (engineers, PhDs, and Life Cycle Assessment experts) and public methodologies validated by competent authorities, such as the French Ministry for Ecological Transition for certain project types. Rainbow issues exclusively ex-post credits, based on measurable and auditable data. The standard is aligned with major international frameworks (SBTi, GHG Protocol, CDP) and was the first to be accepted under the new ICROA procedure. By 2026, Rainbow also aims for recognition by ICVCM, CRCF, and CORSIA, ensuring full compatibility with the world’s best practices.

Expert Insight

The players driving the climate transition are constantly adapting. Rainbow embodies a new generation of carbon standards: agile, rooted in local realities, and designed to turn climate contribution into a true lever for action. Complementing this, ClimateSeed supports organizations in building balanced carbon portfolios, integrating coherent projects that maximize impact, reduce risks, and optimize costs.

Margaux Barles
Carbon & Biodiversity Project Analyst

With Rainbow, ClimateSeed expands its project portfolio

In this logic of diversification and credibility, ClimateSeed recently began including projects certified by Rainbow (formerly Riverse) in its portfolios. This European standard has a dual ambition: to promote local projects beyond Nature-based Solutions, and to reconnect carbon contribution with the concrete realities of companies’ value chains.

By focusing on geographical and sectoral proximity, Rainbow helps organizations move beyond simple "offsetting": they help finance low-carbon projects directly linked to their operations, business challenges, or territory. A concrete way to align reduction goals with contribution actions two elements that are often treated separately.

Turning biomass into energy & lasting carbon-rich matter

This project helps democratize the use of biochar through carbon finance. Biochar is a substance obtained via pyrolysis: biomass (branches, leaves, organic residues) is heated at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen. This energy self-sufficient process even produces renewable electricity while generating a stable, carbon-rich material. When incorporated into soil, biochar enhances fertility, promotes water retention, and stores CO₂ long-term.

With three production sites in France, the project produces 50,000 tons of vegetal charcoal annually, of which 5,000 tons are turned into biochar. The biochar is then sold to farmers, substrate manufacturers, local authorities, or construction players at a more accessible price than non-carbon-financed alternatives. Biomass sourcing is local and from sustainable supply chains, ensuring controlled environmental impact.

Expert Insight

By combining renewable energy production, circular economy, and long-term carbon sequestration, this project is a prime example of how carbon finance, through the Rainbow standard, can scale an innovative, local, and virtuous solution for our economy and regions.

Giving materials a second life to cut carbon impact

This project offers a circular economy solution for the reuse of construction materials. Through its specialized platform, it connects all actors in the value chain owners, developers, architects, engineers, and companies to efficiently match supply and demand for second-hand materials.

The goal is threefold: reduce carbon emissions (linked to waste transportation and production of new materials), save resources, and avoid waste generation. In practice, the project recovers and reuses materials from construction sites: windows, carpets, fixtures, doors, ceilings, etc. Without industrial transformation, these items get a second life, significantly reducing their environmental impact and fostering the development of a local reuse economy.

Expert Insight

Revenue from carbon credit sales enables the project to offer reuse services at more competitive prices and to provide second-hand materials at affordable rates. The aim: democratize and accelerate the adoption of circular practices, particularly in the private housing sector.