Our social approach

We ensure projects have a tangible impact on Nature, climate, and the economic livelihoods of communities, recognizing that these three elements must work together for long-term project success.

Local communities are our most important partners. Without their support, there is no project. aDryada goes beyond risk-mitigation standards, actively pursuing social benefits and strengthening livelihoods.

Because the needs and desires of local communities differ tremendously, aDryada’s social approach in each project looks different, tailored specifically with and to the local population. Still, aDryada has defined a common policy and strategic principles which are applied systematically and ensure transparency and returns for the populations concerned. This is organized around three major principles:

To secure long-term confidence, we engage with the communities and affected population in good faith, using highest standards, to secure long-term confidence.

aDryada systematically requires and obtains Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) through a precise and auditable process, including the development of a stakeholder engagement plan and processes to secure regular exchanges with local partners and representatives of the community. This is essential to maintain local commitment. All processes respect UN Human Rights norms and best practices such as IFC PS.

As a part of this, we implement appropriate grievance mechanisms so that local stakeholders can easily register concerns and complaints, and solutions are found.

Our social approach addresses the local community on both an individual and collective level:

At the community level

Where activities detrimental to the project-area are a source of income for the communities, aDryada defines a smooth and gradual economical transition plan with them to guarantee the security of their living conditions. We also finance full livelihood restoration plans following the IFC PS guidelines. This involves finding alternative economic solutions, financing vocational training, food security programs, and so forth, paying special attention to specifically vulnerable people.

In addition, and in order to demonstrate goodwill and improve confidence and trust among all the affected populations, aDryada helps finance basic infrastructure, such as school classrooms or drinking water.

At the individual level

Projects offer various forms of employment opportunities, in areas such as nurseries, the planting process, forest maintenance, or forest patrol. Women and local people are favored to take on project-related jobs.

We ensure that there is a fair and equitable sharing of all revenue between stakeholders.

We have developed a unique methodology to achieve this, based on three pillars:

1. aDryada fully addresses social concerns and benefits (e.g., livelihood restoration, environmental service contracts, employment) as part of the initial investment.

2. aDryada transparently shares revenues from reforestation and carbon credit sales with communities and the landowner(s) during the entire lifetime of the project.

This fixed share is negotiated in good faith with the landowner(s) and community representatives through a robust and transparent negotiation process (e.g., PPP process).

The income share is distributed to the landowner(s) and local communities through adapted secured mechanisms (e.g., local development fund).

3. aDryada supplementarily shares any upside due to an over-performance of the project (e.g., higher price of carbon credits than projected or best performance) between the parties at a rate transparently negotiated upfront. This final step is critical as it ensures long-term fairness of the deal.