Due-diligence framework for assessing ecological restoration programs - BC-1043

Project type: Innovation
Desired discipline(s): Environmental sciences, Natural Sciences, Forestry, Resources and environmental management
Company: veritree
Project Length: 4 to 6 months
Preferred start date: 11/01/2026
Language requirement: English
Location(s): Vancouver, BC, Canada
No. of positions: 1-2
Desired education level: Master'sPhDPostdoctoral fellow
Open to applicants registered at an institution outside of Canada: No

About the company: 

Veritree’s platform supports partners across a variety of ecosystems, spanning site selection, planting execution, and long-term impact verification. The company works across the full restoration lifecycle—from project assessment and site design through implementation and ongoing monitoring and evaluation—developing complementary standards and tools at each stage to help ensure restoration outcomes are ecologically verifiable and accountable to the communities and ecosystems involved. As veritree's portfolio has scaled, so has the need for standardized, defensible criteria for evaluating which projects and partners meet its ecological, ethical, and operational requirements. This project supports that broader effort by focusing on the due diligence and assessment processes that underpin responsible project selection at scale.

Describe the project.: 

Ecological restoration spans five interlinked stages: Assessment, Planning & Design, Implementation, Ongoing Management, and Monitoring & Evaluation. veritree is actively developing tools and standards across several of these stages; this project addresses the assessment stage. As veritree's restoration portfolio grows, project teams regularly face ethical and operational edge cases that current processes don't resolve consistently. Examples include: how volunteers should be represented in evidence photography; whether and how close to disputed political borders planting should occur; whether to work in "working forests" where land is periodically harvested. veritree currently requires a standardized due-diligence framework to guide these decisions before a project is approved and to support consistent judgment as new edge cases emerge.
This project will scope a due-diligence framework covering the project lifecycle from pre-planting partner and site vetting through post-planting verification. The candidate will review existing sector frameworks to identify approaches transferable to veritree's context. Drawing on this review and on veritree's own edge cases, the candidate will produce a report scoping what a veritree-specific framework needs to address, which decisions are best handled by a scorable risk model versus a structured decision framework, and how the framework would be built and maintained going forward.
Project Summary: structured review of existing assessment and MRV frameworks; comparative analysis against veritree's documented and undocumented edge cases; synthesis into a practical framework.

Required expertise/skills: 

Background in ecosystem restoration, sustainability standards, environmental policy, or a related environmental/social science field with familiarity in MRV standards. Strong research synthesis and written communication skills; comfort reviewing technical and policy documents. Familiarity with land tenure, environmental risk assessment, or due-diligence processes in a conservation or international-development context is an asset.