WHO WE ARE

At Trees for the Future (TREES), we believe farmers have the power to transform the world. For over 30 years, we’ve been a global leader in agroforestry training, partnering with farming families to build vibrant economies, sustainable food systems, and thriving ecosystems. Through our signature Forest Garden Approach, a proven nature-based solution, farmers restore their land, plant thousands of trees, and grow diverse crops, breaking cycles of climate change and generational poverty. By reclaiming their agency, farmers are creating new possibilities for their families, communities, and the environment. We’ve worked all around the world and are currently active in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. TREES has planted over 400 million trees to date.

Through our agroforestry work, TREES is a project developer of high-quality nature-based solutions (NBS) carbon projects that generate verified carbon credits for the voluntary carbon market while delivering meaningful community livelihoods and biodiversity outcomes. TREES has recently validated its flagship agroforestry carbon project under Verra’s VM0042 methodology and is actively advancing its next generation of projects under VM0047.

Learn more at trees.org.

THE ROLE

The Carbon Development Technical Director will provide senior technical leadership across the full carbon project lifecycle - from feasibility through validation, verification, and issuance - while supporting TREES’ transition from VM0042 to VM0047. This role serves as a critical bridge between alignment with methodology, data, implementation, and investor expectations, ensuring technical rigor while enabling scalable, field-practical project design.

The ideal candidate is an experienced, solution oriented technical leader who both advises and works with teams and consultants to ensure TREES is building the robust systems and infrastructure (to match our on the groundwork with farmers) and become a leader in Nature Based Solutions (NBS) Carbon Asset Development.

The role emphasizes technical judgment, oversight, and stress-testing of analytical approaches, with a clear focus on deciding when analyses should be conducted internally versus when specialized external carbon expertise is required.

This is a remote role based in the US, with preference for candidates located in the DC Metro Area, with travel to East Africa as needed.

RESPONSIBILITIES

End-to-End Carbon Project Technical Leadership

• Provide senior technical oversight across the full carbon project lifecycle, from feasibility through validation, verification and issuance, ensuring alignment with registry requirements and organizational impact objectives.
• Develop and manage technical delivery roadmaps that identify analytical dependencies, data requirements, key risks, and mitigation strategies, balancing methodological rigor with field-practical implementation.
• Oversee feasibility assessments, baseline scenario development, and spatial analyses to inform project scale, boundary definition, and long-term crediting viability.
• Translate complex methodological requirements into operationally actionable guidance for field teams, MEL staff, and GIS analysts.
• Guide, review, and stress-test consultant-led technical analyses, ensuring approaches are scientifically robust, conservative, and appropriate to project risk.
• Advise on which technical components TREES should build in-house versus where specialized external carbon support is required.

GIS, Data & Analytical Advisor

• Act as an expert advisor and technical reviewer of spatial and analytical outputs, with sufficient depth to challenge assumptions, identify gaps, and guide methodological improvements without directly executing analyses.
• Provide technical leadership on uncertainty management, including identification of key uncertainty drivers (e.g., sampling, model, stratification, and activity data error) and prioritization of actions that meaningfully reduce overall variance.
• Promote adoption of advanced geospatial analytics, automation, and AI-enabled workflows, in combination with ‘ground truthing’ to improve efficiency and enhance analytical robustness.

Carbon Quantification, Benchmarks & MRV Design

• Provide technical guidance on carbon quantification design choices that materially affect credit integrity, including performance benchmarks, stratification approaches, and growth or biomass modeling assumptions.
• Advise on the selection and justification of appropriate performance benchmarks or stocking indices, ensuring they are traceable to field variables, repeatable through time, and consistent across heterogeneous and mixed agroforestry systems.
• Guide re-stratification approaches for highly variable agroforestry landscapes, including evaluation of structure-informed or management-informed strata that demonstrably reduce variance.
• Oversee evaluation and upgrading of biomass and growth models, including benchmarking alternatives and validating model performance using available field and remote sensing data, without serving as the primary model developer.

Registry, Verification & External Engagement

• Serve as a primary technical liaison with validation and verification bodies and integrating feedback from audits and verifications into updated project design and MRV strategies.
• Participate in investor, partner, and stakeholder discussions as a technical subject-matter expert, translating crediting risk, uncertainty, and methodological constraints into clear, decision-relevant insights.
• Support carbon credit positioning by ensuring technical claims are conservative, credible, and aligned with evolving market and integrity expectations.
• Anticipate and prepare for technical scrutiny from registries, auditors, and buyers by proactively stress-testing assumptions and documentation.

Strategy, Learning & Continuous Improvement

• Contribute technical expertise to broader carbon and nature-based solutions strategy, including methodology selection, portfolio construction, and scaling pathways.
• Monitor emerging developments in forest and agroforestry methodologies, MRV innovation, registry guidance, and integrity frameworks, translating trends into actionable recommendations.
• Support organizational learning by synthesizing and communicating technical lessons learned to program, MEL, and leadership teams.

WHO YOU ARE

• A mission-driven senior technical leader aligned with TREES’ values and purpose. You are energized by working in a collaborative, mission-driven environment that values scientific rigor, continuous learning, and real-world impact.
• A seasoned carbon, MRV, and agroforestry technical expert. You bring deep experience across the full carbon project lifecycle and are comfortable influencing project design. You have experience influencing next-generation agroforestry carbon projects under Verra VM0047, applying strong technical judgment to ensure methodological integrity, scalability, and long-term viability.
• A strategic advisor who balances rigor with practicality. You are skilled at stress-testing assumptions, identifying material sources of uncertainty, and guiding teams toward design choices that meaningfully reduce risk and protect credit quality.
• A strong, collaborative communicator and trusted expert. You engage confidently with registries, auditors, investors, consultants, and partners, translating technical complexity, uncertainty, and methodological trade-offs into clear, decision-relevant insights.
• A continuous learner and systems thinker. You stay current on advances in the carbon space, and You actively contribute to organizational learning by sharing lessons, strengthening technical systems, and helping TREES scale its carbon impact responsibly and credibly.
• A thoughtful builder of internal capability. You bring sound judgment on carbon and MRV competencies and help design efficient technical delivery models that balance internal learning, quality control, and strategic use of consultants as TREES scales its carbon portfolio.
• A steady, values-driven leader under scrutiny. You are comfortable operating in high-accountability environments where assumptions, data, and claims are closely examined. You proactively anticipate technical and reputational risks, prepare teams for rigorous review, and uphold a conservative, transparent approach that reinforces trust with communities, registries, buyers, and partners alike.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree in Forestry, Natural Resources, Environmental Science, GIS or a related field; Master’s degree preferred.
• Minimum 5–7 years of experience in forest or agroforestry carbon project development.
• Experience developing projects using ARR and/or IFM methodologies, including baseline setting, monitoring design, uncertainty management, stratification, and growth or biomass modeling considerations. (concept through issuance strongly preferred).
• Experience advising GIS and spatial analysis teams, with working knowledge of tools such as ArcGIS, QGIS, and remote sensing platforms.

WORK ENVIRONMENT AND BENEFITS

TREES is an International Organization that strives to be the best home for staff wanting to make an impact on the farmers we serve. We believe that the diversity of our staff contributes to excellence. TREES values collaboration and teamwork that fosters increase engagement and innovation for professional growth.

We offer a multicultural, collegial work environment with a competitive salary, comprehensive medical insurance, workers' compensation, retirement, and substantial paid time off, including annual leave and sick leave.

APPLY

If this opportunity speaks to you, please apply with 1) a cover letter that explains why TREES’ work excites you and why this role is a fit for you, and 2) your resume. Ensure both documents are shared as PDF or Word documents. We review applications on a rolling basis.

Trees for the Future is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, parental status, genetic information, or other characteristics or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

We embrace and value diverse skill-sets and backgrounds. We are a community of leaders who are proud to represent many different national, racial, ethnic, socio-economic, religious, gender, and other identities. Our diversity as a community is our strength, driving our ability to be empathetic, visionary, and effective leaders.

Due to the high volume of applications received, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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