Voluntary tool aims to appraise the sustainable development impact of the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM)

Voluntary tool aims to appraise the sustainable development impact of the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM)

Bonn, 2 April 2014 – An online tool that aims to assess the sustainable development benefits of the CDM in a structured, consistent, comparable and robust manner is now fully operational.

The tool helps CDM project developers highlight, on a voluntary basis, the sustainable development benefits of their projects by responding to a check list of predefined indicators that describe impacts on the environment, society and economy of host countries.

“The voluntary tool will help highlight the mechanism’s contribution to sustainable development, while maintaining the host countries’ prerogative to define their criteria for sustainable development,” said the Chair of the CDM Executive Board, Hugh Sealy.

Contribution to sustainable development is one of the two objectives of the CDM. When adopting the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change established the mechanism to assist (1) developing countries to achieve sustainable development and contribute to the ultimate objective of the Convention and (2) developed countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets.

CDM projects create carbon credits that can be sold to developed countries to help them meet their emission reduction targets. They also provide complementary benefits to developing countries, such as new investment, transfer of climate-friendly technologies, improvement of livelihoods, job creation and increased economic activity.

Under the rules of the CDM, it is the responsibility of a host country to attest whether a project assists the country to achieve its sustainable development goals. The country does this by issuing a letter of approval.

With the sustainable development tool, CDM project participants now have a way to elaborate on the sustainable development benefits of their projects and programmes of activities in a comparable and structured way.

It is hoped that enhancing the transparency of the sustainable development benefits of the mechanism will assist project participants to effectively promote the sustainable development benefits of their projects, and assist buyers of CERs to easily identify projects with high sustainable development benefits.


Kind regards,
Your CDM team