What goes into a Project Design Document

The Project Design Document is the filing a validator reads first. It describes what the project does, why it would not happen without carbon finance, how emission reductions or removals will be measured, and who was consulted. Every registry has its own template, but the questions underneath are remarkably consistent.

This guide walks through those questions in the order most templates ask them, with the evidence each one usually rests on.

Project description

The opening section sets the scope that everything else is checked against: the activity, the technology or practice, the location and boundary, the project proponents, and the start date and crediting period.

• Boundary: a mapped project area, usually supplied as KML or KMZ, with the area stated in hectares.
• Ownership and rights: land tenure documents or agreements that show who holds the right to the carbon.
• Timeline: the start date and the evidence that fixes it, such as a planting record or a commissioning report.

Baseline and additionality

The baseline describes what would happen without the project. Additionality shows that the project itself is not that baseline: that it needs carbon revenue to go ahead, or faces barriers that carbon revenue helps overcome.

This is the section validators spend the longest on, because it carries the most judgement. Strong drafts state the baseline scenario plainly, then support it with the specific studies, surveys and financial analysis it relies on.

Quantification

Here the PDD applies the chosen methodology to estimate emission reductions or removals over the crediting period. Expect to show the equations, every parameter with its source, and the deductions the methodology requires, such as leakage and any buffer contribution.

Monitoring plan

The monitoring plan lists what will be measured after validation, how often, by whom, with what equipment or sampling design, and how the data will be stored and checked. A plan that cannot be followed in the field is a finding waiting to happen at verification.

Stakeholder consultation and safeguards

Registries expect evidence that people affected by the project were informed and heard, and that the project does no harm. Under Gold Standard this includes the stakeholder consultation report and a safeguarding assessment, alongside the project's contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

A good PDD reads as a set of claims, and every claim points to the page that proves it.

Before you submit

1. Check that every number appears with the same value everywhere it is used.
2. Make sure each claim names its source document, and that the document is in the evidence pack.
3. Read the monitoring plan as the field team would, and confirm it can actually be carried out.
4. Run the registry's own checklist against the draft, field by field.