Unlock True Additionality: A Deep Dive into Treeconomy's Dynamic Performance Benchmark Assessment
A powerful tool to help you accurately measure project additionality, meet rigorous standards, and secure the investment your nature-based project deserves
Carbon Credits
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Jun 10, 2025
Carolina Amu Trujillo
If you're a nature-based project developer, you know this question is central to everything you do: how do you prove your project is making a genuine, additional carbon removal difference? In the evolving landscape of the voluntary carbon market (VCM), demonstrating true additionality isn't just a technicality; it's central to your project's success, influencing everything from securing funding and the price of your carbon credits to your project's overall reputation.
The complexities are real, but the need for credible proof is non-negotiable. That's where Treeconomy's Dynamic Performance Benchmark (DPB) assessment comes in. It’s a robust, data-driven solution designed to provide clear, defensible evidence of your project's unique impact.
This assessment is built to help you meet rigorous standards, navigate the validation process more efficiently, and ultimately, showcase the true quality of your carbon removal efforts – potentially enhancing the monetary value of your credits.
See in action, watch our product video walkthrough. [Link to Product Video Here].
What is a Dynamic Performance Benchmark and Why Does it Matter?
At its heart, a dynamic performance benchmark helps answer the critical question: What would have happened to the carbon stocks on this land if our project hadn't existed? It involves comparing the carbon changes within your project area’s ‘project plots’ against carefully selected 'control plots' that represent this 'business-as-usual' scenario.
But why dynamic? The landscapes and practices around your project aren't static, and neither is its true additionality. A dynamic benchmark evolves. It adapts to reflect ongoing changes in the surrounding environment, land management practices, and even climatic patterns over time. This ensures that the measure of your project’s impact remains accurate and relevant throughout its lifespan, rather than being a fixed snapshot based only on past conditions. This approach provides a far more realistic and robust assessment of your project's ongoing contribution. (For a more foundational look at this concept, we recommend reading our blog post on understanding dynamic baselines).
Crucially, Treeconomy’s DPB assessment is designed to align with leading methodologies, such as Verra's VM0047. This alignment is essential for achieving project validation and generating the high-quality carbon credits that discerning buyers and investors are seeking.
Inside Treeconomy’s DPB: Features That Deliver Unmatched Accuracy
Our Dynamic Performance Benchmark assessment is more than just a report; it’s an insight engine, powered by advanced remote sensing and rigorous science. Here’s a look at the key features that set it apart:
A. Visualising Your Impact: Interactive Mapping in Sherwood
Forget static PDFs. You’ll access your DPB assessment results directly within Sherwood, our intuitive project development hub. Here, you can visualise your project plots and their scientifically matched control plots on an interactive map. This allows you to explore the data spatially and gain a clearer understanding of the landscape context.
B. Key Metrics at Your Fingertips: Performance Benchmark & Stocking Index
Sherwood provides a clear overview of your project’s key metrics. This includes the overall performance benchmark, tracking your project's carbon impact against the 'no project' scenario, and the crucial average stocking index.
You also get a stocking index graph. This powerful tool, visually tracks the changing biomass over time, comparing your project plots against the selected control plots. A clear, relative increase in your project’s biomass after your intervention start date provides compelling, data-backed evidence of its additionality. For developers with early-stage projects, this visual clarity can be invaluable for understanding project performance; for developers with already established projects, it offers a robust dataset for reporting and verification.
C. The Science of Fair Comparison: Our Robust Control Plot Selection
The credibility of any benchmark hinges on the quality of its comparison sites. Our methodology for selecting control plots is meticulous. We ensure they are truly similar to your project area by considering multiple factors, including:
- Same Ecoregion: Ensuring ecological comparability.
- Same Administrative Region: Accounting for similar governance and land-use pressures.
- Critically, Similar Biomass Stocking for 10 Years Prior: We analyse a decade of historical biomass data to ensure control plots had a similar carbon trajectory before your project began.
This multi-layered approach ensures the comparison is as fair and scientifically sound as possible. We also offer flexibility by incorporating globally available datasets or, where appropriate and robust, more locally sourced data or information provided by you, the developer. This can enhance the specificity of the assessment and, in some cases, speed up delivery. This rigorous selection process provides a more defensible baseline than approaches that might rely on less nuanced comparisons.
D. The Power of Precision: Treeconomy’s Site-Specific Biomass Digital Twin
This is where Treeconomy truly elevates the bar. Instead of relying solely on global proxies, we build a site-specific biomass digital twin for your project. This advanced model integrates:
- Satellite Imagery: Providing broad-scale, consistent coverage.
- Drone Data (where available/provided): Offering higher-resolution insights.
- Ground Truth Data: Crucially, incorporating on-the-ground measurements to calibrate and validate our models.
Why is this superior? Some methodologies might use global data or simple proxies like canopy height to estimate biomass. While useful, these can be blunt instruments across diverse forest types (e.g., broadleaved vs. coniferous forests with similar heights but vastly different biomass) and often don't capture the complex, non-linear relationship between such proxies and actual biomass.
Treeconomy’s approach directly estimates biomass, with models tuned to the unique ecological characteristics of your specific project area. The result? The more accurately we can measure that biomass, the better our additionality assessments are, leading to significantly higher accuracy and reduced uncertainty in your project's carbon accounting. This commitment to ground-truthing ensures our data is robust and fact-based.
The Treeconomy Advantage: Why Our DPB Stands Above the Rest
Choosing Treeconomy’s Dynamic Performance Benchmark isn't just about meeting a requirement; it’s about equipping your project with the most credible, accurate, and defensible assessment of its additionality. Here’s what sets us apart:
- Unparalleled Accuracy, Not Just Proxies: Our site-specific biomass digital twin delivers a more precise and "more reflective measure of your project's true positive impact" than generic, global model-based approaches.
- Genuinely Dynamic, Truly Representative: Our baselines adapt over time, providing an evolving and more accurate testament to your project's ongoing impact, unlike static assessments.
- Faster Insights, Quicker Validation: Receive your comprehensive DPB assessment in as little as one week (7 days), and even faster (2-3 days) in countries where we already have foundational data prepared. Less waiting, more progressing.
- Transparent & Defensible (Built on Facts, Not Hype): We prioritise robust, statistically sound models rigorously calibrated with on-the-ground measurements. While "AI" is a buzzword, we believe in verifiable data. Our models predict with precision because they learn from reality, ensuring your assessment is transparent and highly defensible during validation.
- More Than Just Compliance – Driving Project Quality: Our goal, mirroring yours, isn't just to tick a box. It’s to build a baseline that is more accurate, more defensible, and ultimately, more reflective of your project's true positive impact, showcasing the inherent quality and integrity of your work.
The Tangible Benefits for Project Developers
Investing in a high-calibre DPB assessment translates into real-world advantages:
- Streamlined Validation Process: Submitting a report backed by such robust, transparent, and accurate data can significantly smooth the validation journey, reducing queries from verifiers and potentially speeding up timelines.
- Enhanced Credibility and Trust: A scientifically rigorous DPB builds confidence with investors, partners, and crucial carbon credit buyers, demonstrating your commitment to high-integrity practices.
- Potential for Higher Carbon Credit Revenue: In a market increasingly prioritising quality, projects that can irrefutably prove their additionality stand out. A Treeconomy DPB underpins this quality, potentially positioning your credits for premium pricing.
- Informed Decision-Making: The detailed insights from the assessment empower you with a deeper understanding of your project's performance, aiding in adaptive management and future planning.
See the Difference
To further understand the principles behind our DPB, explore our [Link to your Dynamic Baselines Blog Again]. And for a visual walkthrough of the assessment in Sherwood, watch the product video:
Take the Next Step to Verifiable Impact
Ready to robustly demonstrate your project's carbon additionality and unlock its full value? Treeconomy’s Dynamic Performance Benchmark assessment provides the clarity, accuracy, and defensibility you need.
Contact our team today to discuss your project and request your assessment.
