PAPER FOREST: CARBON CREDIT, ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY, AND GREENWASHING RISK IN THE BRAZILIAN EMISSIONS TRADING SYSTEM PAPER FOREST: CARBON CREDIT, ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY, AND GREENWASHING RISK IN THE BRAZILIAN EMISSIONS TRADING SYSTEM

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Carbon pricing has become a central instrument of climate policy, and Brazil established a regulated market through Law 15,042/2024. The effectiveness of any credit depends on its environmental integrity, in the dimensions of additionality, permanence, leakage, and verification. This study analyzes the conditions under which this integrity holds or is compromised and how the identified weaknesses translate into greenwashing risk within the Brazilian Emissions Trading System. An integrative literature review was adopted, with a protocol adapted to PRISMA and a search in the SciELO and SPELL databases, covering the period from 2010 to 2026. The search retrieved 82 records, and after removing duplicates and applying the eligibility criteria, a corpus of 26 studies was constituted. The results show that verification is the weak link of the credit and that forest offsets did not curb deforestation in the analyzed projects. The organizational literature documents the production of symbolic legitimacy, while relevant disclosure remains voluntary. These planes rarely connect in the retrieved literature. The analytical category of the Paper Forest is proposed, designating the credit without verifiable physical backing that sustains symbolic compensation without material transformation of emissions. It is concluded that interoperability between markets and the regulatory retreat convert the credit weakness into systemic risk. The governance of the newly established market depends on criteria of integrity, verification, and socio-environmental safeguards.

Keywords: Carbon credi; Environmental integrity; Greenwashing; REDD+; Brazilian Emissions Trading System.