The Philippines’ Confederation of Sugar Producers (CONFED) and Swiss climate technology firm EcoGuard Global have signed an agreement on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos to establish the country’s first national Carbon Office. The initiative aims to create a unified framework for tracking, verifying, and issuing carbon credits, with an emphasis on enabling participation by smallholder farmers.
More than three million coconut farmers are expected to gain access to carbon finance by linking farm level practices to verified carbon credits, providing a potential supplementary income stream. The digital platform, built on Hedera, is targeted for rollout by June 2026 and is designed to align with international carbon market rules under Paris Agreement Article 6.
With Philippines preparing for Carbon Markets 2.0, with real time dMRV (digital Monitoring, Reporting, Verfication) reporting replacing manual, episodic audits, we can now ensure that when a farmer sequesters carbon, the financial incentives and rewards are delivered immediately and accurately rather than at the end of a multi-year cycle and after a significant value loss on account of administrative overheads, errors, and the cost of non-compliance.
The agreement reflects rising demand in carbon markets for systems that allow credits to be measured, verified, and tracked with greater consistency and transparency. EcoGuard’s platform is intended to manage the full carbon credit process from project registration and monitoring to issuance and retirement, using digital records to maintain traceability and auditability across each stage.
Compliance-Focused Digital Infrastructure
Under the agreement, EcoGuard will deploy and manage the CONFED Carbon Office, adapting the system to national and sector-specific requirements. The platform is expected to be operational by June 2026 and to support participation in international carbon credit markets. Any revenues generated are intended to be shared with farmers and used to support coconut replanting efforts targeting 100 million new trees by 2028, as well as investments in farm-level technologies.
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CONFED represents more than 3 million coconut farmers across the Philippines and manages an estimated 540 million tonnes of CO₂e through regenerative agriculture under the national COCAL Program. As part of the agreement, EcoGuard Global plans to register approximately 347 million coconut trees on its platform, enabling farmers to monetize existing carbon sequestration activities while supporting national climate targets.
EcoGuard’s platform is designed to meet the compliance and reporting requirements of institutional carbon market participants, with the aim of supporting reliable price discovery and enabling access to climate finance at scale. EcoGuard’s system is designed to maintain verifiable and auditable records across the carbon credit value chain using a distributed ledger framework. The company is deploying similar state-level carbon platforms in India and other jurisdictions, and is involved in carbon markets as a project developer and technical enabler for regulated and voluntary climate initiatives.
Linking Smallholder Farming to Carbon Finance
The agreement between CONFED and EcoGuard Global signals early movement toward a more formal national carbon market structure. While still at a framework stage, the proposed Carbon Office suggests an attempt to consolidate carbon credit tracking, verification, and issuance under a single system, with particular attention to smallholder inclusion.
Carbon markets will only scale when they work for the people delivering measurable climate impact. Through this partnership with CONFED, we are enabling millions of Filipino farmers to access global climate finance via a Carbon Markets 2.0 framework – digitally verifiable, investor-grade, and aligned with Article 6. Built on Hedera, this platform ensures that value flows transparently, efficiently, and at fair value to farmers, while establishing national-level carbon infrastructure that the global market can trust.
If implemented as planned, the initiative could widen access to carbon finance for millions of coconut farmers by linking on-farm practices to verified credits. The shift toward real-time digital monitoring, rather than periodic audits, may reduce delays and administrative leakages that have historically limited farmer payouts, though outcomes will depend on execution and regulatory clarity.
More broadly, the agreement reflects growing demand for higher transparency and consistency in carbon markets. Whether such platforms can translate technical traceability into stable farmer income and credible market participation remains an open question as the Philippines prepares for a more digitized phase of carbon market development.
