Senior Program Officer, REDD Projects

Senior Program Officer, REDD Projects

Location: Remote – Worldwide (significant overlap with US business hours).

Reports to: Manager, REDD, Natural Climate Solutions Certification.

Verra is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges. As a mission-driven non-profit organization, Verra is committed to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve livelihoods and protect natural resources across the private and public sectors. We support climate action and sustainable development with standards, tools and programs that credibly, transparently and robustly assess environmental and social impacts and enable funding for sustaining and scaling up projects that verifiably deliver these benefits.

We work in any arena where we see a need for clear standards, a role for market-based mechanisms, and an opportunity to generate significant environmental and social value.

Our portfolio of standards includes the:

• Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) – the world’s leading carbon crediting program, with more than 2000 registered projects in 80 countries, and accounting for two-thirds of all voluntary carbon market transaction volume.
• Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) – a flexible framework for assessing and reporting on the sustainable development benefits of project-based activities.
• Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards – to identify projects that simultaneously address climate change, support local communities and smallholders, and conserve biodiversity.
• Plastic Waste Reduction Program – to enable robust impact assessment of new or scaled-up waste recovery and recycling projects around the globe.

Shape the future of climate action by ensuring the integrity of REDD projects that protect forests and reduce global emissions. Verra is the world leader in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) project certification, and we anticipate a surge in REDD project reviews as the transition to our newest Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) REDD methodology is implemented. As a member of the Certification team, you would ensure that REDD projects validated and verified to the VCS drive real-world impact.

[JB1] [HB2] [JB3] Learning from project reviews will enable you to support enhancements to the requirements and Verra’s internal processes.

• Conduct thorough reviews of project documentation to ensure accuracy, compliance, and quality of VVB performance and integrity of projects requesting registration and issuance of units (and labels) with the VCS Program.
• Communicate with VVBs and project proponents and support REDD stakeholder engagement broadly (and specifically in collaboration with the Market and Client Relations team).
• Support a smooth transition of currently registered REDD projects to Verra’s newest REDD methodology (VM0048).
• Work with the team to understand challenging project situations, integrity thresholds, and longevity of projects.
• Collaborate internally with the Auditing and Accreditation Team on project quality and VVB performance. This role may also entail onsite audits of VVB site visits.
• Collaborate with the VCS Program development, technology solutions, audit and accreditation, and sustainable development teams to ensure alignment and incorporation of updates to our tools, systems, and processes resulting from the implementation of VM0048 and other REDD methodologies, and the Jurisdictional and Nested REDD framework.
• Train and onboard new staff and external contractors when necessary.

• Verra’s Certification team comprises highly motivated experts essential to maintaining the integrity of our suite of standards.
• Verrans come from diverse locations and backgrounds, including carbon market experts, project developers, consultants, climate negotiators, researchers, auditors, and more.
• We are committed to driving quality so that finance can flow at scale to projects and programs that advance climate action and sustainable development through high-quality standards and programs.

• At least five years of relevant professional experience in developing…