Quantifying Forest Sequestration for CSR: How Many Tonne -Years of Carbon Holding Did You Buy? Presented at Carbon TradeEx America Chicago, IL Sept. 28 - 29, 2010 Mike Arny President Leonardo Academy

1. 10/7/2010
Quantifying Forest Sequestration for CSR:
How Many Tonne -Years of Carbon Holding Introduction to
Did You Buy? Leonardo Academy
A White Paper by Leonardo Academy • Charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
• Mission: Advancing sustainability
• Motivates the competitive market using innovative tools & information
Presenter: • Develops new approaches and methods for sustainability
• Supports implementation of new approaches and methods
Michael Arny • Areas of Work
President • Overall sustainability for organizations
• LEED® implementation and certification support
• Emissions footprints, reduction strategies and offsets
– Cleaner and Greener® Program certifies achievements
• ANSI Sustainability Standards Development
– Emissions, organizations, vehicles, sustainable agriculture products
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Leonardo Academy Leonardo Academy
History of Work on Emissions Issues History of Work on Forest Sequestration Issues
• Michael Arny, President, was the co-chair of the State of • Review of all emission protocols to see how each
Wisconsin committee that lead on the first state-wide
emission inventories funded by the USEPA (2003-2007) addressed forest sequestration
• Leonardo Academy’s emissions work: – May 31, 2007 working draft of the Leonardo Academy
– Conducted a multi-stakeholder process for Multi-Emissions White Paper "Review of Emission Standards and Protocols."
Reduction Reporting process
– Cleaner and Greener® Program to recognize emission reductions
– Available at
and offset actions http://www.leonardoacademy.org/publications/reports/27
• Offset emissions of first event on September 10-11, 2001 5-review-of-emissions-standards-a-protocols.html
• Offset emissions of Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City 2002
• Calculated and offset emissions of Greenbuild each year, 2002-Present
– Developing ANSI standard for Emissions Inventories, Offsets and
Reduction Credits
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Forests are a Key Part of the Climate
Change Solution
• Forests hold carbon
– Planting forest adds to the amount of carbon held
– Protecting existing forests maintains the amount of
carbon held
– Destroying forests releases carbon
• Both planting new forests and maintaining
existing forests are important for slowing climate
change.
• 12 – 20% of annual global GHG emissions are the
result of deforestation.
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2. 10/7/2010
We Need to Extend Recognition of
Existing Forests are the
of Carbon Holding to
Hole in the Climate Change Bucket
All Existing Forests
• Until Recently • All owners of existing forests need:
– All regulatory and voluntary programs focused on
afforestation and reforestation while ignoring – To have an economic incentive to preserve their
preservation of existing forests. existing forests
• This narrow focus has left existing forests vulnerable to
destruction. – To have opportunity to receive annual income for
• Global organizations and forest offset programs each year they continue to preserve their existing
are beginning to recognize and credit existing forests
forest maintenance in limited ways.
– REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Degradation) for tropical forest
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To Effectively Recognize and Reward the
We Need to Start Addressing Ongoing Holding of Carbon in Forests We
the Long Term – What if We Succeed Need a New Metric
• How we will keep all good actions for addressing • In exploring how to recognize the benefits of holding
carbon in forests Leonardo Academy identified the need to
climate change going develop a more fundamental metric for the amount of
for the long term even when these actions are no climate good delivered by forests holding carbon.
longer new? – The fundamental metric we developed for carbon holding is the
tonne-Year
• For all you afforestration advocates: – One tonne of carbon held for one year = a tonne-year
– How will we reward continued preservation of those • It turns out that unless you calculate the tonne-years for
planted forests for the second hundred years? the carbon holding offsets you are buying or have bought
you have no idea of how much climate good they are
• We will need to figure out how to reward all delivering.
good actions
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This New Metric
How to Calculate Tonne-Years
Reveals the Major Differences
for Carbon Held by Forests Between Offsets Under Different Protocols
• Each of the forest carbon holding protocols • There is a wide variation among offset protocols
includes a duration for which the forest must in how many tonne-years of carbon holding are
be preserved and a method for calculating the delivered by each tonne of offsets purchased
amount of carbon held over that time – The prices of offsets co
• To calculate the Tonne-Years for a carbon • So when purchasing carbon holding offsets or
holding offset: reporting them in as part of CSR: calculate the
– Calculate the number of tonnes of carbon held number tonne-years so you know what you are
– Divide by the number of years the carbon is held getting.
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3. 10/7/2010
How Many Tonne-Years in a Tonne in
Findings
Existing Forest Offset Protocols?
• We looked at 3 US offset programs to answer this Table 1: Tonne Years Delivered per Tonne of Offsets Purchased
question: for Several Protocols
– Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX)
Offset Offset Number of Tonne years of Carbon held
– Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)
Program Type per Tonne of Carbon Offset Purchased
– Climate Action Reserve (CAR)
• Items considered:
– Maximum crediting periods CCX CFI 1-18
– Minimum time credited forest carbon has to be held
VCS VCU 19-102
– Any mechanisms intended to insure against reversal (e.g.
mandatory contributions to buffer pools, policies of
decreased crediting for forests with higher risk ratings) CAR CRT 112-250
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A Comparison of Tonne-Years and Market A Call to Action for Offset Protocols and
Values of Offsets Forestry Offset Stakeholders
• We must begin to:
Implied Tonne to Tonne-Year Ratios
7 0.14
– Adopt effective and verifiable metrics to
6 0.12 measure the impacts of forests on
Market Value of Offsets ($)
5 0.1 atmospheric CO2 over time (tonne-years).
4 0.08
– Choose the appropriate tonne to tonne-year
High End
3 0.06 ratio to provide an adequate incentive to
2 0.04 Low End forest owners to maintain and increase the
1
0.02 amount of carbon held in their forests each
0
0
year.
CFI VCU CRT
CFI VCU CRT
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A New Standard Questions / Comments
• Leonardo Academy Draft Standard for • To view the White Paper, visit:
– www.leonardoacademy.org/publications/reports/300-tonne-to-tonne-
Emissions Inventories, Offsets, Reduction year-correlations.html
Credits, and TAGs • To learn more about participating in the
– Aims to address forest carbon sequestration in a development of the LEO emissions standard, visit:
– www.leonardoacademy.org/programs/standards/emissions-
way that fully recognizes existing forests and standards.html.
awards credits annually in tonne-years • Contact Us:
– We are accepting applications for participation on – Michael Arny, michaelarny@leonardoacademy.org
– Sonia Carlson, sonia@leonardoacademy.org
the standards committee! – Barb McCabe, barb@leonardoacademy.org
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