10/7/2010

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Michael Arny

President

Quantifying Forest Sequestration for CSR:

How Many Tonne -Years of Carbon Holding

Did You Buy?

A White Paper by Leonardo Academy

Presenter:

Introduction to Leonardo Academy

• Charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

• Mission: Advancing sustainability

• Motivates the competitive market using innovative tools & information

• Develops new approaches and methods for sustainability

• Supports implementation of new approaches and methods

• Areas of Work

• 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

History of Work on Emissions Issues

• Michael Arny, President, was the co-chair of the State of Wisconsin committee that lead on the first state-wide emission inventories funded by the USEPA (2003-2007)

• Leonardo Academy’s emissions work:– Conducted a multi-stakeholder process for Multi-Emissions

Reduction Reporting process

– Cleaner and Greener® Program to recognize emission reductions and offset actions

• Offset emissions of first event on September 10-11, 2001

• 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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Leonardo Academy

History of Work on Forest Sequestration Issues

• Review of all emission protocols to see how each

addressed forest sequestration

– May 31, 2007 working draft of the Leonardo Academy

White Paper "Review of Emission Standards and Protocols."

– Available at

http://www.leonardoacademy.org/publications/reports/27

5-review-of-emissions-standards-a-protocols.html

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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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Existing Forests are the

Hole in the Climate Change Bucket

• Until Recently – All regulatory and voluntary programs focused on

afforestation and reforestation while ignoring preservation of existing forests.

• This narrow focus has left existing forests vulnerable to destruction.

• Global organizations and forest offset programs are beginning to recognize and credit existing forest maintenance in limited ways.– REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and

Degradation) for tropical forest

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We Need to Extend Recognition of

of Carbon Holding to

All Existing Forests

• All owners of existing forests need:

– To have an economic incentive to preserve their

existing forests

– To have opportunity to receive annual income for

each year they continue to preserve their existing

forests

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We Need to Start Addressing

the Long Term – What if We Succeed

• How we will keep all good actions for addressing climate change going for the long term even when these actions are no longer new?

• For all you afforestration advocates:

– How will we reward continued preservation of those planted forests for the second hundred years?

• We will need to figure out how to reward all good actions

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To Effectively Recognize and Reward the

Ongoing Holding of Carbon in Forests We

Need a New Metric

• In exploring how to recognize the benefits of holding carbon in forests Leonardo Academy identified the need to develop a more fundamental metric for the amount of climate good delivered by forests holding carbon.– The fundamental metric we developed for carbon holding is the

tonne-Year

– One tonne of carbon held for one year = a tonne-year

• It turns out that unless you calculate the tonne-years for the carbon holding offsets you are buying or have bought you have no idea of how much climate good they are delivering.

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How to Calculate Tonne-Years

for Carbon Held by Forests

• Each of the forest carbon holding protocols includes a duration for which the forest must be preserved and a method for calculating the amount of carbon held over that time

• To calculate the Tonne-Years for a carbon holding offset:

– Calculate the number of tonnes of carbon held

– Divide by the number of years the carbon is held

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This New Metric

Reveals the Major Differences

Between Offsets Under Different Protocols

• There is a wide variation among offset protocols

in how many tonne-years of carbon holding are

delivered by each tonne of offsets purchased

– The prices of offsets co

• So when purchasing carbon holding offsets or

reporting them in as part of CSR: calculate the

number tonne-years so you know what you are

getting.

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How Many Tonne-Years in a Tonne in

Existing Forest Offset Protocols?

• We looked at 3 US offset programs to answer this question:– Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX)

– Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)

– Climate Action Reserve (CAR)

• Items considered:– Maximum crediting periods

– Minimum time credited forest carbon has to be held

– Any mechanisms intended to insure against reversal (e.g. mandatory contributions to buffer pools, policies of decreased crediting for forests with higher risk ratings)

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Findings

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Table 1: Tonne Years Delivered per Tonne of Offsets Purchased

for Several Protocols

Offset

Program

Offset

Type

Number of Tonne years of Carbon held

per Tonne of Carbon Offset Purchased

CCX CFI 1-18

VCS VCU 19-102

CAR CRT 112-250

A Comparison of Tonne-Years and Market

Values of Offsets

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0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

CFI VCU CRT

Imp

lied

To

nn

e to

To

nn

e-Y

ear

Rati

os

High End

Low End

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

CFI VCU CRT

Mark

et V

alu

e o

f O

ffsets

($)

A Call to Action for Offset Protocols and

Forestry Offset Stakeholders

• We must begin to:– Adopt effective and verifiable metrics to

measure the impacts of forests on atmospheric CO2 over time (tonne-years).

– Choose the appropriate tonne to tonne-year ratio to provide an adequate incentive to forest owners to maintain and increase the amount of carbon held in their forests each year.

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A New Standard

• Leonardo Academy Draft Standard for

Emissions Inventories, Offsets, Reduction

Credits, and TAGs

– Aims to address forest carbon sequestration in a

way that fully recognizes existing forests and

awards credits annually in tonne-years

– We are accepting applications for participation on

the standards committee!

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Questions / Comments

• To view the White Paper, visit:– www.leonardoacademy.org/publications/reports/300-tonne-to-tonne-

year-correlations.html

• To learn more about participating in the development of the LEO emissions standard, visit:

– www.leonardoacademy.org/programs/standards/emissions-standards.html.

• Contact Us:– Michael Arny, michaelarny@leonardoacademy.org

– Sonia Carlson, sonia@leonardoacademy.org

– Barb McCabe, barb@leonardoacademy.org

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