focus on reducing industrial gas or manufacturing emissions. While inconclusive on
best practices, the academic literature provides the contours of how program design
features may engage with intended outcomes (Bailis et al. 2009; Mobarak et al.
2012). This body of research has informed the policy-making community, most
notably with the development of the Gold Standard certification scheme for best
practices in carbon offset project design (The Gold Standard 2010) and the Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ (GACC) recent presentation of a conceptual framework on how to measure and monitor sustainable development against project
indicators (GACC 2014).
12.2.2 Measuring Sustainable Development in Carbon
Interventions
Most practical attempts to measure sustainable development impacts across the
market landscape mirror or modify the Gold Standard’s sustainable development
matrix, which identifies environmental, economic and social indicators and asks the
project developer to rank the project’s impact using a scaled score chart from -2 to
2. Numerous academic and gray assessments of carbon projects utilize a portfolio
analysis approach in which they conduct a textual analysis of the project’s benefits,
extracting information from the sustainable development matrix (Olsen and
Fenhann 2006; Sutter and Parre~ no 2007). A limitation across these assessments is
an absence of information on the causal pathways that link the indicator of interest
to a development outcome.
The GACC is currently working with the International Center for Research on
Women to create conceptual frameworks that link project indicators with three
development outcomes of interest: women’s empowerment; the pathway between
technology adoption and social/economic wellbeing and finally, the pathway
between project implementation and livelihood enhancement (Fig. 12.1). These
conceptual frameworks are based upon the GEF’s Theory of Change, a policy
design paradigm that makes transparent the assumed relationships between policy
actions (indicators), policy impacts (components) and outcomes (goals).
An earlier GACC publication by Troncoso presents an adoption index and
project impact index for comparing project effectiveness within a portfolio
(Troncoso 2014). Troncoso’s approach simply identifies key variables for the
outcome of interest and weights them according to relevance. Adapting Troncoso’s
general method for creating an impact index derived from the GACC’s conceptual
framework results in the creation of a new tool – a Livelihood Index (LI) – for
valuing livelihood impacts from carbon-financed interventions.
Before delving further into the assumptions underlying and the application of the
livelihood index, it is worth addressing why local economic impacts matter. The
vast majority of studies on carbon markets and environment-development projects
more generally focus on the user experience: how and why users adopt a new
12 Unpacking the Black Box of Technology Distribution, Development Potential. . .
217
best practices, the academic literature provides the contours of how program design
features may engage with intended outcomes (Bailis et al. 2009; Mobarak et al.
2012). This body of research has informed the policy-making community, most
notably with the development of the Gold Standard certification scheme for best
practices in carbon offset project design (The Gold Standard 2010) and the Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves’ (GACC) recent presentation of a conceptual framework on how to measure and monitor sustainable development against project
indicators (GACC 2014).
12.2.2 Measuring Sustainable Development in Carbon
Interventions
Most practical attempts to measure sustainable development impacts across the
market landscape mirror or modify the Gold Standard’s sustainable development
matrix, which identifies environmental, economic and social indicators and asks the
project developer to rank the project’s impact using a scaled score chart from -2 to
2. Numerous academic and gray assessments of carbon projects utilize a portfolio
analysis approach in which they conduct a textual analysis of the project’s benefits,
extracting information from the sustainable development matrix (Olsen and
Fenhann 2006; Sutter and Parre~ no 2007). A limitation across these assessments is
an absence of information on the causal pathways that link the indicator of interest
to a development outcome.
The GACC is currently working with the International Center for Research on
Women to create conceptual frameworks that link project indicators with three
development outcomes of interest: women’s empowerment; the pathway between
technology adoption and social/economic wellbeing and finally, the pathway
between project implementation and livelihood enhancement (Fig. 12.1). These
conceptual frameworks are based upon the GEF’s Theory of Change, a policy
design paradigm that makes transparent the assumed relationships between policy
actions (indicators), policy impacts (components) and outcomes (goals).
An earlier GACC publication by Troncoso presents an adoption index and
project impact index for comparing project effectiveness within a portfolio
(Troncoso 2014). Troncoso’s approach simply identifies key variables for the
outcome of interest and weights them according to relevance. Adapting Troncoso’s
general method for creating an impact index derived from the GACC’s conceptual
framework results in the creation of a new tool – a Livelihood Index (LI) – for
valuing livelihood impacts from carbon-financed interventions.
Before delving further into the assumptions underlying and the application of the
livelihood index, it is worth addressing why local economic impacts matter. The
vast majority of studies on carbon markets and environment-development projects
more generally focus on the user experience: how and why users adopt a new
12 Unpacking the Black Box of Technology Distribution, Development Potential. . .
217