labor and managerial labor is not a likely hindrance to the outcomes of interest.
Thus, this preliminary livelihood index offers insight into a project’s ability to
improve local economic well-being by focusing on the necessary (though possibly
insufficient) components of an enhanced livelihood.
12.3 Field Methods
The three projects under evaluation have been registered under the Gold Standard
or Voluntary Carbon Standard since 2012, enabling adequate time for the projects
to perform and to begin to make an impact on the community of interest. The
projects are located in Cambodia each project is national in scope. The projects all
market their carbon assets as “pro-poor”, “Gold Standard” or useful for sustainable
development, citing community benefits as a salient marketing feature of their
project in addition to the environmental benefits.
This research is based on 144 semi-structured interviews with 91 individual
carbon asset managers, project managers, and financiers. Interviewees included the
full range of people involved with, and impacted by, the project, including:
technology producers (including designers, factory workers, supervisors, and distributors), technology promoters, micro credit agents, local banking institutions,
recipient households (both husband and wife when possible), households that opted
not to participate in the project, agricultural extension workers involved in project
dissemination, carbon asset managers, carbon asset brokers, financiers, foreign
consultants to the projects, hedge fund managers, and researchers who had previously written on or had reportedly observed my projects of interest.
In formulating the interviews and research approach, process tracing provided
the analytic basis; it is a method that focuses on identifying sequential processes
and mechanisms that determine outcomes of interest (Checkel 2008; Bennett 2010).
Process tracing favors “thick” (in-depth) analysis of a small set of cases because of
its primary interest in sequential processes within a case, as opposed to comparing
correlations of data across a large N case-set. For example, the semi-structured
interviews, conducted with a translator, followed a basic template designed to
quantify gains (and losses) from project participation in terms of income, time,
and opportunity costs, while also covering qualitative questions on the participants’
assessment of their quality of life in general terms, and the impact of the project on
their livelihoods and choices. Open-ended questions such as “what is your greatest
concern about the project?” helped to identify the criteria for locally-relevant
project success. The theory in question here relates to the belief that carbon market
projects that target households and utilize point-of-use technologies for public
health are going to support local, sustainable development and are therefore worthy
of premium carbon credit labels such as the “Gold Standard” or the privileged
position of being named “charismatic carbon” within the carbon market community. Process tracing can dig deeply into the assumption that household-scale
interventions are synonymous with local development.
222
J. Hyman
Thus, this preliminary livelihood index offers insight into a project’s ability to
improve local economic well-being by focusing on the necessary (though possibly
insufficient) components of an enhanced livelihood.
12.3 Field Methods
The three projects under evaluation have been registered under the Gold Standard
or Voluntary Carbon Standard since 2012, enabling adequate time for the projects
to perform and to begin to make an impact on the community of interest. The
projects are located in Cambodia each project is national in scope. The projects all
market their carbon assets as “pro-poor”, “Gold Standard” or useful for sustainable
development, citing community benefits as a salient marketing feature of their
project in addition to the environmental benefits.
This research is based on 144 semi-structured interviews with 91 individual
carbon asset managers, project managers, and financiers. Interviewees included the
full range of people involved with, and impacted by, the project, including:
technology producers (including designers, factory workers, supervisors, and distributors), technology promoters, micro credit agents, local banking institutions,
recipient households (both husband and wife when possible), households that opted
not to participate in the project, agricultural extension workers involved in project
dissemination, carbon asset managers, carbon asset brokers, financiers, foreign
consultants to the projects, hedge fund managers, and researchers who had previously written on or had reportedly observed my projects of interest.
In formulating the interviews and research approach, process tracing provided
the analytic basis; it is a method that focuses on identifying sequential processes
and mechanisms that determine outcomes of interest (Checkel 2008; Bennett 2010).
Process tracing favors “thick” (in-depth) analysis of a small set of cases because of
its primary interest in sequential processes within a case, as opposed to comparing
correlations of data across a large N case-set. For example, the semi-structured
interviews, conducted with a translator, followed a basic template designed to
quantify gains (and losses) from project participation in terms of income, time,
and opportunity costs, while also covering qualitative questions on the participants’
assessment of their quality of life in general terms, and the impact of the project on
their livelihoods and choices. Open-ended questions such as “what is your greatest
concern about the project?” helped to identify the criteria for locally-relevant
project success. The theory in question here relates to the belief that carbon market
projects that target households and utilize point-of-use technologies for public
health are going to support local, sustainable development and are therefore worthy
of premium carbon credit labels such as the “Gold Standard” or the privileged
position of being named “charismatic carbon” within the carbon market community. Process tracing can dig deeply into the assumption that household-scale
interventions are synonymous with local development.
222
J. Hyman