VELUX and WWF Complete 450,000-Hectare Forest Conservation Portfolio

VELUX Group and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have completed the development of a portfolio of forest conservation projects covering more than 450,000 hectares across Madagascar, Vietnam and Uganda, marking a significant milestone in a 20-year corporate climate and nature partnership.

The fourth and final project, announced in August 2026, is located in the Northern Highlands of Madagascar and covers approximately 275,000 hectares. Known as the Vanilla Forest project, it will focus on protecting existing forests, restoring degraded areas and supporting communities whose livelihoods are linked to vanilla production.

Together, the four projects are intended to reduce and remove 4.5 million tonnes of CO₂ once fully implemented. The figure reflects VELUX's current estimate of its historical Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from the company's foundation in 1941 through to its centenary in 2041.

The portfolio includes tropical forests in Uganda and Vietnam, alongside mangrove and terrestrial rainforest ecosystems in Madagascar. Although all four projects are now under implementation, conservation, restoration and monitoring activities will continue throughout the partnership rather than ending with the completion of the portfolio.

Madagascar Project Completes Forest Portfolio

The latest project significantly expands the geographic scale of the partnership. Madagascar is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity and endemism, but its forests face continuing pressure from land-use change, degradation, and economic dependence on natural resources.

The Vanilla Forest project is designed to combine forest protection with restoration and community-based approaches. Sustainable vanilla production is particularly relevant because communities in northern Madagascar depend heavily on the crop for income.

This creates an important practical challenge for nature-based climate initiatives. Long-term forest protection often depends not only on conservation measures but also on whether local communities have viable economic alternatives to activities that contribute to forest degradation.

The Madagascar initiative joins three previously established projects under the VELUX-WWF partnership.

One of the earliest is a forest regeneration project in Uganda's Albertine Rift. Launched in 2021, it initially covered approximately 34,000 hectares and was expected to contribute around one million tonnes of avoided or removed CO₂ toward Uganda's climate commitments. The project is being implemented with WWF Uganda and Uganda's National Forestry Authority.

Additional forest conservation and restoration projects in Vietnam and Madagascar were announced in 2023, expanding the programme into additional biodiversity-rich tropical landscapes.

Forest Investment is Separate from Corporate Decarbonization

A notable aspect of the partnership is the way VELUX treats the carbon benefits generated by the forest projects.

The company classifies the investments as action beyond its own value chain rather than as a substitute for reducing emissions from manufacturing, energy use, materials or suppliers.

VELUX says verified carbon units generated by the forest projects are expected to contribute toward the national climate targets of the countries hosting them under the Paris Agreement. The units will be retired rather than traded or used by VELUX or another organization to offset emissions.

This distinction is increasingly relevant for corporate climate strategies. Nature-based projects can provide carbon, biodiversity and social benefits, but reliance on carbon offsets can create credibility concerns when companies use external projects instead of reducing emissions within their own operations and supply chains.

VELUX is pursuing the forest programme alongside a separate decarbonization strategy. Its current sustainability targets include eliminating operational Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030 compared with a 2020 baseline, without relying on carbon offsets. The company also has targets covering emissions throughout its value chain.

Scope 3 remains particularly important for the building products sector because emissions from raw materials, manufacturing supply chains, transport and other value-chain activities can considerably outweigh emissions generated directly by a company's own facilities. VELUX states that approximately 98% of its carbon footprint is associated with Scope 3 emissions.

The company has therefore introduced requirements encouraging suppliers to establish science-based emissions reduction targets, increase renewable electricity use, offer lower-carbon products and publicly disclose emissions and targets.

Carbon is Only One Measurement of Success

The partnership also illustrates the growing shift toward evaluating nature-based projects through more than carbon volumes alone.

VELUX and WWF state that projects are selected based on several criteria, including carbon mitigation potential, biodiversity benefits, community outcomes, and their ability to deliver durable environmental improvements.

The portfolio combines protection of existing forests with restoration of degraded landscapes. Protecting forests can prevent carbon already stored in vegetation and soils from being released through deforestation, while restoration can increase the amount of atmospheric CO₂ absorbed as forests recover.

VELUX says the projects will use a combination of approaches including Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, and afforestation, reforestation and revegetation activities. Carbon reductions and removals will be monitored and quantified, with the company citing methodologies based on standards developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

WWF's involvement also brings biodiversity considerations into the project design. Forest ecosystems provide habitat for a substantial share of terrestrial species, meaning that avoiding deforestation can create environmental benefits that cannot be represented adequately by tonnes of CO₂ alone.

A Model for Beyond-Value-Chain Climate Finance

For companies considering investments in nature, the VELUX-WWF programme highlights several features increasingly associated with higher-integrity corporate climate action: long-term financing, separation between emissions reductions and external climate contributions, host-country accounting, community participation and measurement of biodiversity alongside carbon.

The structure does not remove the risks associated with forest carbon projects. Long-term outcomes depend on factors such as permanence, changes in land use, monitoring quality, local governance and the ability to demonstrate that conservation outcomes would not have occurred without the intervention.

However, committing finance over 20 years provides considerably more time for restoration and conservation than short-term purchases of carbon credits.

The completion of the 450,000-hectare portfolio therefore represents the beginning of a longer implementation phase rather than the conclusion of the initiative. The key test through 2041 will be whether the projects deliver measurable reductions and removals while maintaining forests, improving biodiversity and providing durable benefits for communities in Madagascar, Vietnam and Uganda.

For other companies developing net zero and nature strategies, the partnership also reinforces an increasingly important principle: investment in forests can complement corporate decarbonization, but it should remain clearly separated from the direct reductions required across operations and supply chains.

Source: sustainabilitymag.com