FSC to explore engagement in forest based Carbon Offset

By passing the motion 43 on forest based carbon offset, the FSC community recognised that forests can have an important role to play in addressing climate changes and that FSC should explore its potential engagement in forest based carbon offset. As described in Certified Wood Update on November 6, FSC is in a good position to enter carbon forestry projects, as FSC is already delivering social and environmental performance at implementation level. Considering the increasing role ascribed to forests in climate change over the last couple of years, it did not come as a major surprise that the members of FSC decided to explore making carbon issues part of the FSC business area. 

The motion - proposed by WWF US - also addresses a key challenge in carbon projects: The risk of forest conversion and degradation as well as violation of indigenous people’s rights when developing forest based carbon projects. Therefore the motion asks FSC to explore the role that FSC Principles and criteria , governance, accreditation, policy development and forest certification can play in frameworks to mitigate climate change by maintaining and/or increasing carbon stocks.

The motion suggests that FSC explores the possibilities to establish real, measurable and verifiable emissions reductions, based on forest protection and improved management, and looks into how FSC certified management practices could maintain and/or increase forest carbon sequestration;

Other options to be explored include the relationship between the FSC Principles & Criteria  and the strategies under the UNFCCC, including reduced emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD); alignment or partnerships with voluntary carbon standard programs; the development of guidelines and cost models to help FSC certificate holders, including smallholders, indigenous people’s, and community-managed forests, access revenue sources for maintaining or enhancing carbon sequestration.

Finally the motion implies that the FSC Chain of Custody system shall be explored for its capacity to facilitate determination of product level carbon-footprinting.

According to Professor Martin Walter from Fachhochschule Weihenstephan, FSC certification is already relevant in the context of carbon forestry projects: “FSC is already covering a part of these projects since FSC delivers social and environmental performance at the implementation level and also provides means of verification. However, so far we do not have carbon project design standards which can be complemented by the FSC standards”.

Walter recommends FSC to cooperate with others in this field like Voluntary Carbon Standard or CDM, given the complexity of the field and the fact that FSC has not yet been involved in carbon accounting.

On the first day of the Forest Conference, Jim Ford, from Climate for Ideas.org, highlighted the need to determine how FSC standards can currently deliver carbon benefits, and recommended to analyse what changes could increase the benefits. Ford also stressed the need for regulating the carbon market and warned against creating a subprime market for carbon, and recommended a system involving conflict-of-interest-free, transparent, national carbon accounting.

Deborah Spalding from Working Lands Investment Partners stressed that carbon emissions mitigation is already a billion dollar business and no longer considered an emerging market. To a financial investor, carbon projects are today considered an investment object equal to any other investments.