Xilva GRADE:
The blueprint for forest project assessments
Investing in forest projects offers tremendous opportunities for both financial returns and positive environmental and social impact.
However, navigating the complexities of these investments requires a thorough understanding of the associated risks and impacts, and their interconnectivity, across multiple dimensions.
That’s why we developed GRADE, Xilva’s proprietary forest evaluation methodology, building on the intimate knowledge and deep experience of our forest team’s decades of field experience, and offer it to stakeholders along the whole value chain: investors, project developers and corporate buyers.
evaluates the unique ESG & impact attributes, and risks & opportunities of forest projects across all stages
of project development.
We manage the complexities for you:
We provide a rigorous assessment across 6 areas
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The positive & negative impacts of the project today, its additionality, permanence, potential scale and intensity
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Application of a standardized model to assess financial claims and market strategy, project design and resources
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Environmental impact assessments & risk management systems for ESG. Risk level, severity analysis and mitigation measures
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Sense-check of impact strategy vs technical model. Benchmarking against regional growth rates and models. Legal & political risk analysis
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Governance structure alignment with project needs and operational capacity
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Expanded data remit to determine what a project could provide if scalable
Our Data Stack
Production models, Carbon and Biodiversity references
Remote sensing environmental and social data
Registries and certification data
Project documentation
International & regional
costs and prices
Best practice benchmarks and safeguarding
Reputation checks & database of risk
Interviews with key personnel
What are the key criteria to consider in an effective Due Diligence?
This guide lists 11 key criteria, explains their importance and includes a sample data point assessed by Xilva GRADE.
How Xilva GRADE brings value to you
“At Goodman, we only want to invest in nature-based solutions that consider the entire ecosystem of the carbon credit, such as location, surrounding communities, land owner, track record, carbon developer, etc.
Since the Voluntary Carbon Market is a complex environment that is constantly evolving, and forest management even more so, we decided to look for external expertise.
From the start, the specialists at Xilva understood our needs and requirements, analysing every project and advising us at every step of the process. Xilva’s help was very valuable for the diverse due diligences we performed and they were able to get us in touch with a very competent carbon developer.”
Marie Maggiordomo - Sustainability & Innovation Director, Goodman
Sil Lanckriet - Co-founder and carbon expert, Climate Lab
“Small forestry projects like ours rarely get direct support or advice from clients or resellers. The carbon market can feel a bit transactional at times.
Working with Xilva was different: they listened to our needs first, instead of setting conditions. The grading system helped us to distinguish our Plan Vivo project from other carbon projects. We are now proud of our GRADE and see it as a quality label. On top, the assessment results have been useful to implement improvements to the project in the field.”
Pradyot Porwal - CEO, Hasten Forestry India
“Xilva's approach to grade pre-issuance and pre-listing projects is really useful as an early stage project developer for two reasons.
First, it gives us feedback on how investors and other stakeholders will perceive the project, hence providing an opportunity to continuously improve and work towards a high quality project.
Secondly, it brings transparency for all stakeholders thus improving project and market integrity. Hasten likes Xilva's model of providing a blend of standardized and personalized services.”
Discover Xilva GRADE
Unlock the full potential of your forest investments.
Xilva GRADE provides a holistic project assessment suite specifically tailored to fulfil the comprehensive due diligence requirements of impact-driven investors.
How is Xilva GRADE different from other ratings?
Xilva GRADE is a comprehensive assessment of forest and nature-based projects which analyses all connected elements:
carbon & climate, biodiversity, water & soil, social & community.
Under Xilva’s systemic approach, they are critical, connected elements that, if not properly addressed and balanced,
will reduce the project's ability to realise each individual impact.
"If nature-based solutions are to achieve scale, we must remove the uncertainty and minimize risks for capital providers, while at the same time, allow project developers space to engage and improve. The finance sector is calling out for a common understanding of how to calibrate an increasing number of project proposals.
Xilva Grade builds on years of field assessment expertise, adds the advances provided by technology and offers an in-depth view of a projects strengths and weaknesses - if you will -
a 360º view of the forest using a trusted blueprint."