Voluntary carbon credits from improved forest management: policy guidelines and case study

Abstract

Human activities have the potential to enhance carbon sequestration by the world's forests and contribute to climate change mitigation. Voluntary carbon trading is currently the only option to pursue and reward carbon sequestration by forestry activities. Carbon credits for enhanced sequestration can be sold to partners wishing to offset their own emissions. Here we illustrate the steps taken to design guidelines for the generation of voluntary carbon credits by improved forest management in Piemonte, Italy. The guidelines have been developed in a joint effort by academia, regional administrations, forest owners and professional consultants. In particular, we show how to compute the baseline and the additionality of credit-generating forest management activities, and how to reconcile the generation of forest carbon credits with law requirements, technical limitations, and the provision of other ecosystem services. To illustrate the profitability of carbon credit generation, we simulated the application of carbon credit guidelines to two forest-rich mountain watersheds in the southern part of the Piemonte region. The two dominating tree species are beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.). We computed current forest carbon stock and carbon credits generated in 20 years under business as usual and an alternative biomass retention scenario. The IFM resulted in an avoided harvest of 39,362 m 3 for a net total of 64,014 MgCO2e after subtracting harvest emissions, or 38 Mg ha -1 throughout the permanence period of 20 years. These steps can be replicated in other mountain regions where there is interest in promoting this ecosystem service as an alternative or an addition to production-oriented forest management.

Assessing the availability of forest biomass for bioenergy by publicly available satellite imagery

“…Such approach is reproducible wherever aggregated inventory data and geographical layers are available. Planned harvest intensities took into account current forest practice, historical harvest rates, as well as legal limitations and best practices to ensure the simultaneous provision of wood and other ecosystem services, e.g., carbon stocking (Vacchiano et al 2018b) or hydrogeologic protection (Vacchiano et al 2016). We estimated how much biomass would be harvestable in the next two decades by using a "stock change" approach, e.g., planning one-off silvicultural entries and estimating the removed volume, rather than assessing removals based on estimated future woody increment (Sacchelli et al 2013).…”

The new EU LULUCF regulation: challenges and opportunities for the Italian forest sector

“…Ciò riguarda anche l'impiego del legno per fini energetici, ove il noto dibattito sull'assunzione di "neutralità" della bioenergia risulta superato nel momento in cui le eventuali variazioni dello stock di carbonio presenti in foresta, conseguenti anche all'impiego della biomassa forestale per fini energetici, vengono pienamente conteggiate, come dovrebbe avvenire grazie al nuovo RL. In effetti, la possibilità di utilizzare i crediti da LULUCF per compensare i debiti in altri settori potrebbe innescare e favorire a scala locale iniziative volte a valorizzare, anche economicamente, la funzione di carbo-ritenzione attraverso la gestione forestale attiva (Vacchiano et al 2017).…”

Estimation of carbon storage of forest biomass for voluntary carbon markets: preliminary results

“…In the context of VCMs, forestry activities that can produce CC are: (1) afforestation, reforestation and urban forestry, (2) reduction of GHGs emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), (3) use of renewable energy, and (4) improved forest management (IFM) systems (Kollmuss et al 2008;Gorte and Ramseur 2010;Arnoldus and Bymolt 2011;Merger and Pistorius 2011;Vacchiano et al 2018). Often, in mountainous ecosystems, forest area is very high and it is not possible to enhance further the carbon storage by afforestation or reforestation activities.…”

“…Often, in mountainous ecosystems, forest area is very high and it is not possible to enhance further the carbon storage by afforestation or reforestation activities. In this case, the carbon storage can be enhanced only through IFM systems, that include different practices, mainly referred to: (1) extension of the rotation length, (2) reduction of woody biomass harvesting compared to the maximum volume allowed by forest management plans (FMPs), (3) conversion of aged and/or abandoned coppices to high forests, (4) increase of carbon retention in HWPs, (5) increase of the use of HWPs instead of more fossil-energy intensive materials, and (6) increase of the use of woody biofuels to substitute fossil fuels (Aruga et al 2013;Alberdi et al 2016;Ruiz-Peinado et al 2017;Vacchiano et al 2018). Each CC exchanged on a VCM promotes the mitigation of 1 t of CO 2 released into the atmosphere from anthropogenic activities.…”

“…Each CC exchanged on a VCM promotes the mitigation of 1 t of CO 2 released into the atmosphere from anthropogenic activities. Moreover, CC from IFM systems are important to address sustainable forest management for both public and private owners (Vacchiano et al 2018).…”