Costs & fees

Registration costs and fees

There are certain core costs and fees involved in registering a PV Climate project with the Plan Vivo Foundation. The Plan Vivo Foundation is a registered charity and fees are designed to cover costs only. 

Projects that generate less than or equal to 10,000 PVCs per year can opt to be considered microscale projects. These smaller types of projects can choose to be audited through the internal validation and verification process, meaning they can be audited by Independent Experts rather than VVBs. The objective of this change is to minimise the financial pressure of the auditing process on the smallest of projects. Please note these are the fees associated with the Plan Vivo certification process and do not include the external costs to the VVBs and Independent Experts.

 

PV Climate projects issuing PVCs

Process	Involves	Costs*
Project Idea Note (PIN) review	Desk review by the Plan Vivo Foundation	$1,000 (for all projects)
Project Design Document review (including one Technical Specification)	Desk review by the Plan Vivo Foundation; peer review by Technical Review Panel	$1,500 (for macroscale projects) $3,000 (for microscale projects)
Additional Tech Spec Review	Desk Review by the Plan Vivo Foundation; peer review by Technical Review Panel	$500 (for macroscale projects) $500 (for microscale projects)
PDD / Tech Spec Updates	Desk review by the Plan Vivo Foundation	Variable based on the scope of PDD update
Validation and Verification Coordination	Desk review and finalisation of project registration by Plan Vivo Foundation	Macroscale validation and verification: $1,000 Microscale validation and verification: $2,000
Late Annual Report Fee	Late fee for annual reports that are more than 12 months overdue	$100
Issuance Fees	Issuing Plan Vivo Certificates, per issuance volume band	≤50,000 PVC p.a. = $0.40/PVC   >50,000 PVC p.a. = $0.35/PVC
Conversion fees	Converting PVCs between unit types	Free
Methodology Concept Note Review	Review of methodology concept notes	$350
Methodology Assessment	Review of Methodologies (not including VVB assessment)	Variable
Auditors	Review and registration of VVBs and IEs	Registration fee (once off) for VVBs: $500 Registration fee (once off) for Independent Experts: $100
Resellers	Costs associated with setting up and ongoing access to an account on the registry	Registration fee (one off): $800  Annual fee: $800

*All costs are subject to VAT. UK based organisations will be charged VAT at 20%. Organisations and individuals based in the rest of the world are not subject to VAT. 

 

Non-issuing PV Climate projects

PIN	$1,500
PDD	$6,000
PDD Update	Variable
Validation and Verification	$2,000
Annual Certification Fee	$0.10 per carbon benefit reported

 

Development costs

Project development costs can vary considerably depending on the size, location and complexity of the project. It also depends on the technical capacity of the project coordinator, as a technical expert will be required for the creation of the technical specifications (see Registration Process for more information about project documentation types), and so one may need to be hired if the project coordinator does not hold this capacity internally.

To fund these initial development costs, a project coordinator may want to seek start-up funding (see below).

 

Audit costs

To ensure that projects meet the PV Climate Standard - and continue to do so in their lifetime - projects must undergo periodic 3rd-party audits. This consists of a validation prior to project registration, then verifications every 5 years thereafter. The cost of these events is highly situational-dependent, varying on project size, remoteness and intervention types.

For more information, please see the Validation & Verification page or contact the Plan Vivo projects team: [email protected]

 

Operational costs

The size of project operational costs depend on the scale and nature of the project. To access example information on other projects’ running costs, project developers can read existing Plan Vivo project Annual Reports (found on the individual project pages), which include information on running costs and distribution of benefits within the project. Comparison against their situation may better help you understand what your project's costs may be.

 

Project start-up funding

The Plan Vivo Foundation does not provide start-up funding to PV Climate projects. Information on funding can be found at the following websites:

Climate Funds Update Provides information on international fund initiatives, including lists of previously funded projects.

Terra Viva Grants Directory develops and manages information about grants for agriculture, energy, environment, and natural resources in developing countries.

Current PV Climate projects have sourced start-up funding (for initial project development costs) from sources including DFID, USAID, the EU, the Waterloo Foundation, Darwin Initiative, and from up-front payments or investment by purchasers.

  

For all project related enquiries, please email [email protected]

   

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