Pina Earth x Fokus Zukunft: Case Study

High-quality carbon credits for global climate protection

Through the partnership with Fokus Zukunft, Pina Earth has found a trustworthy partner that places just as much value on high-quality carbon offset projects as Pina Earth itself. From now on, companies can purchase Pina Earth's forest adaptation projects as part of their climate strategy through Fokus Zukunft and thus contribute to numerous UN sustainability goals. In this way, Fokus Zukunft takes responsibility for global climate protection – for itself and its customers.

By founding Fokus Zukunft, Peter Friess has not only anchored his vision of a future worth living in his own company. As a sustainability consultancy, Fokus Zukunft also helps other companies to take responsibility.

“We have just under 6 years left until we have used up our CO2 budget to meet the 1.5 degree target. Acting now counts and every step makes a difference. Forest adaptation projects have a huge role to play in achieving this goal. With Pina Earth's projects, we have the opportunity to implement this in domestic regions as well, increasing relevance and visibility.” – Axel Banoth, CEO of Fokus Zukunft

The sustainability experts at Fokus Zukunft offer individualized services to support companies with regard to sustainability. These include the development of a suitable climate strategy, the preparation of a sustainability report and the implementation of workshops to sensitize employees to the topic of sustainability. All this with the aim of not only setting a direction, but also enabling others to follow this path independently by actively imparting knowledge. With this concept, Fokus Zukunft has already written 1,800 success stories in the last seven years. 

The challenge

Fokus Zukunft is an experienced partner for all strategic issues relating to sustainability. With this comes responsibility: selecting credible carbon offset projects. As part of any climate strategy, Fokus Zukunft first calculates the company's carbon footprint. Reduction measures and targets are then defined on this basis. For emissions that cannot (yet) be reduced, Fokus Zukunft offers a portfolio of carefully selected carbon offset projects in which companies can invest to make a climate contribution. The challenge is to select projects that have a measurable positive impact on the climate and suit the respective customer.

"When selecting high-quality climate protection projects, it is crucial for us that the project is aligned with our values. We don't just rely on external evaluations, but also check criteria such as additionality, the clear avoidance of double counting, durability, and verification by independent parties. But we also factor social aspects and transparency into the decision-making process." – Lena Scharr, Head of Sales, Marketing & Offsetting

The carbon offset projects in Fokus Zukunft's portfolio are validated by external auditors, such as TÜV, according to established standards. This guarantees that the projects are based on scientific methods. Fokus Zukunft offers a broad portfolio of these carbon offset projects, including renewable energy projects, cooking stove projects or nature-based solutions. It makes sense to support a portfolio of different project types and diverse countries.

"In principle, every Fokus Zukunft customer decides for themselves which project they would like to invest in from our portfolio. It's great that we can now also offer a project in Germany with the Pina Earth forest adaptation project, thus fulfilling a frequently expressed wish of customers to get involved regionally." – Simone Allig, Team Lead Marketing & Communications

Fokus Zukunft' project dashboard, depicting Pina Earth's 'Luckaitztal' project

The solution

Pina Earth offers high-quality carbon credits from regional forest adaptation projects in Germany. In this way, risky monocultures are transformed into biodiverse mixed forests.

All projects are validated by the independent auditor TÜV Nord. The audit reports confirm that Pina Earth's method meets the requirements of ISO standard 14064-2 and that all data models and calculations are comprehensible. The carbon sink performance is quantified in an appropriately conservative manner. With Pina Earth's projects, Fokus Zukunft complements its project portfolio with high-quality carbon credits in the Nature-based Solutions sector from Germany. Fokus Zukunft thus not only expands its portfolio with carbon credits, but also enables companies to strengthen numerous UN sustainability goals with Pina Earth's projects.

Forests cover 30.7% of the Earth's surface and not only provide food security and shelter, but are also relevant to combating climate change and protecting biodiversity. Intact terrestrial ecosystems are critical for both economic and social stability. Implementing measures to protect and adapt forests can, among other things, halt biodiversity loss (SDG 15). It will also protect the storage of groundwater by forests (SDG 6) and ensure sustainable use of wood as a raw material (SDG 12).  

Lena Scharr, Head of Sales, Marketing & Offsetting at Fokus Zukunft

"The unique thing about working with Pina Earth is the very direct and constructive contact with the project development side, i.e. Pina Earth. As a result, not only do we feel more connected to the specific project, but we experience Pina Earth's projects as much more tangible. In this way, the collaboration and also our support takes on a very emotional component." – Lena Scharr, Head of Sales, Marketing & Offsetting