Webinar: Carbon credit market opportunities for Vietnam's rubber industry

Amidst increasing demands for emission reduction and sustainable supply chain development, carbon credits are gradually becoming a potential tool to help businesses access new financial sources, while meeting requirements from international markets. The rubber industry, characterized by its long-cycle crops and carbon sequestration capability, is assessed to have the potential to participate in carbon credit mechanisms. However, most businesses currently still lack practical information regarding the market, policies, and implementation methods.

On August 11, 2026, the Vietnam Rubber Association (VRA) and Forest Trends jointly organized the webinar “Carbon Credit Market Opportunities for Vietnam's Rubber Industry”. The workshop was attended by nearly 100 delegates representing state management agencies, professional organizations, rubber enterprises, experts, and units interested in the carbon market. The workshop provided a comprehensive overview of carbon market types, updated Vietnam's mechanisms, policies, and requirements for forest carbon credits, and discussed opportunities as well as practical challenges faced by rubber businesses.

Currently, the carbon market can be divided into compliance markets, voluntary markets, and other international cooperation mechanisms. Of these, compliance markets arise from legal obligations or mandatory requirements; voluntary markets are based on the proactive demand of businesses and organizations to purchase and use credits; additionally, there are other mechanisms under Articles 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement and CORSIA for international aviation.

In Vietnam, the policy framework for the carbon market in general and forest carbon in particular is being formed with many related regulations such as Decree 180 on forest carbon sequestration and storage services, Decree 29 on the domestic carbon exchange, Decree 112 on the international exchange of GHG emission reduction outcomes and carbon credits, and the GHG Emission Reduction Decree (06-119).

From a business perspective, when accessing the carbon market, Mr. Hoang Bao Luan, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Team at Dong Nai Rubber Corporation (DONARUCO), believes the rubber industry has several significant advantages. Rubber has a long business cycle, about 25–30 years, large biomass, and commercial timber at the end of its cycle. At the same time, rubber businesses have accumulated a relatively good data system on planting plots, tree age, varieties, fertilizers, fuel, and yield over many years. Furthermore, pressure from EUDR, customer demands for carbon footprints, and Net Zero commitments in supply chains are also creating additional motivation for businesses.

However, when comparing the conditions of carbon credit projects with actual production, many bottlenecks begin to emerge.

One of the fundamental issues is legal status and land classification. TCVN 14682:2026 identifies the subjects of IFM-P measures as existing productive plantation forests and productive forest land after harvesting. In contrast, DONARUCO's rubber areas are on state-leased land for perennial crops, not forestry land. This raises the question of whether rubber plantations on perennial crop land can be considered suitable subjects for IFM-P, and whether land-leasing enterprises are eligible to register forest carbon projects.

Another difficulty is the mismatch between areas with sustainable forest management certification and areas with long-term stability potential. DONARUCO currently manages approximately 31,000 hectares of rubber in Dong Nai, of which over 9,000 hectares have VFCS/PEFC certification and about 2,000 hectares in Cam My are identified as long-term stable. However, most of the certified area is located in a zone planned for land-use conversion by 2030, while the long-term stable area does not yet have corresponding forest management certification.

In addition, there is the commitment period and the additionality paradox. Large rubber enterprises have already implemented relatively standardized technical processes for many years, from using varieties and fertilizers according to norms to vegetation management and erosion control. When many improvement measures have become common production activities, businesses must identify what constitutes new interventions, incremental to the baseline scenario, to be able to generate credits.

Another issue raised by businesses is the relationship between the number of credits generated and the NDC contribution obligation. According to the presentation, businesses do not simply “sell as many as they generate”; the amount of credits supplied also depends on fulfilling the NDC contribution obligation and must be verified by the competent authority before exchange or transfer.

Project costs and credit prices are also decisive factors for feasibility. Projects must undergo many steps from standard selection, project document development, registration and validation, measurement and reporting, independent verification, to credit issuance and registration in the registry system. This poses a particular challenge for small-scale projects, as consulting, measurement, validation, and verification costs can significantly increase the cost per credit.

From this reality, DONARUCO proposed considering a large-scale project model or aggregating multiple participating entities to share consulting, measurement, and validation costs, while generating a sufficiently large volume of credits to improve the project's economic efficiency. The enterprise also recommends clarifying the legal status of enterprises leasing land for perennial crops, the applicability of IFM-P to rubber, and the principles for allocating NDC contributions, as well as developing specific technical guidelines, biomass coefficients, and emission factors suitable for rubber trees.

From the discussions at the Workshop, it can be seen that the rubber industry has the potential to participate in the carbon market, but credit development needs to be approached cautiously across three aspects: legal, technical, and economic efficiency.

In the immediate future, businesses need to proactively complete data on area, current state of forests/crops, biomass, and emissions; simultaneously evaluate additionality, project sustainability, and measurement, validation, and verification costs before deciding to invest. At the industry level, developing technical guidelines and databases, biomass coefficients, and emission factors suitable for the specific characteristics of rubber trees will be crucial in reducing costs and facilitating business participation in the market.

Amidst increasing demands for emission reduction and sustainable supply chains, carbon credits can become a new financial source for the rubber industry. However, in addition to the ability to sell credits, businesses also need to consider the value of emission reduction and carbon sequestration for their own supply chains, especially as international customers become increasingly concerned about the carbon footprint of products. This is a problem that needs to be simultaneously evaluated in terms of technical, legal, and economic efficiency before deciding to invest in a carbon credit project.