REDD+ Nesting

REDD+ Nesting

REDD+ Nesting is an accounting and governance approach that integrates project-level and subnational REDD+ activities into a country's national REDD+ programme. The approach ensures that greenhouse gas emission reductions are measured, reported, and accounted for consistently across all levels, while preventing double counting of emission reductions and ensuring alignment with national climate goals. Nesting provides a transparent framework for coordinating carbon accounting, monitoring, benefit sharing, and reporting, enabling REDD+ projects to contribute to national commitments under the Paris Agreement while maintaining environmental integrity and investor confidence.

Kenya has adopted a decentralized nested REDD+ approach, which integrates project-level and subnational REDD+ activities within the national REDD+ framework while allowing eligible projects to generate and trade emission reductions. This approach ensures that all REDD+ activities are aligned with Kenya's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), National REDD+ Strategy, Forest Reference Level (FRL), National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS), and national carbon accounting system, while preventing double counting and maintaining environmental integrity. To operationalize this approach, the Government launched the Kenya REDD+ Nesting Guidelines in 2025, which provide the institutional, technical, and procedural framework for integrating REDD+ projects into the national system. The Guidelines outline project eligibility requirements, approval processes, carbon accounting principles, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), registry integration, benefit sharing, and the transition of existing REDD+ projects into Kenya's national REDD+ programme.