News

Title Profitable carbon storage

Body In the US, services are offered to get paid by just letting the forest be. One
example is a company named SilviaTerra that matches carbon buyers to
forest landowners who wants to sell carbon storage. The landowner
chooses the payment level at which he or she wants to participate and
SilviaTerra tries to find a buyer who accepts that bid. When a deal is
closed, an annual contract is made where the landowner takes on
harvesting less volume than ordinarily planned for one year, increasing
the amount of carbon stored in the forest. Upon verification of the result,
the landowner receives payment for the additional carbon stored on the
property.

In Sweden, there are also services offered. The company Absorb sells
plants to common people and guarantee that those trees are planted on
sites that are not used for anything, like unused agricultural land,
meaning that new forest, and carbon storage, is created. The landowner
in this case must sign a contract taking responsibility to manage that site
for the purpose of storing as much carbon as possible for 50 years. For
this, he receives SEK 5000 (approx. $ 500) per hectare for the whole
period. That amount doesn´t even cover the planting, but on the other
hand; If the landowner was planning to plant there anyway … it´s better
than nothing.

Another Swedish company The Forest Solution, offer to fertilize forest

land to increase the carbon storage. The offer aims for companies who
wants to compensate for their environmental footprints by buying those
fertilizing services.

Germany leads the way(?)

Those were only a few examples of available services in this field, by

private/commercial companies. In Germany the political parties CDU/CSU
and SPD have managed to enforce a decision in the parliament
(Deutscher Bundestag) to investigate creating a system that rewards
forest owners for ecosystem performances such as storing carbon.

The Bundestag call on the government to, on a scientific basis, create a

feasible model to value the ecosystem performances. A system based on
the above-mentioned model should be established, that rewards diverse
ecosystem performances and notes (among other things):

– that the diverse ecosystem performances of the forest and its

interaction with recreation and nature education is taken into
consideration,
 – that the reward is a payment tied to certain conditions,

– that the reward should be big enough to be interesting for the

forest owners from a financial perspective,

– that the reward is a permanent and long-term system that aims at

sustainable forest management,

– that the forest owner will have to prove to the authorities that,
within a certain period of time, that his or her forest management
has led to an improvement of the ecosystem performances, and
that a reliable control is required before payment from the state
can be received.

It is also pointed out that the reward system should be formed to secure
improvement of the ecosystem performances in the forest. That means as
for an example adaption to climate change and support of biodiversity. It
´s also mentioned that the reforestation after the vast bark beetle
damages should be made with biodiversity in mind, and the carbon
storage should be long-term.

Not only gold diggers

This discussion is quite new. As in all new businesses “gold diggers” turn
up. People whose main target is to gain profit for themselves – playing
the environmental card to get rich.

One thing that strikes me is that buying carbon storage through forest
owners to compensate for your own bad conscience, could be a way to
continue letting co2 out from your business, but with less bad conscience.
Wouldn´t it be better to try to decrease the emissions from your business
instead? Is there a risk that the above-mentioned possibilities delay the
development of getting cleaner production and cleaner factories?

I have no reason to believe that the companies mentioned above are gold
diggers. I take it their intentions are good and honest. But it´s interesting
that most initiatives in this direction comes from private companies, and
as such they of course must be allowed to make a profit.

When a parliament like German Bundestag comes up with the same type
of thoughts, but with a much wider perspective, it really starts to be
interesting. The question is why we never heard of such initiatives from
other governments or states before? I haven´t anyway. After all, it´s an
issue that is being discussed everywhere on every level of society. So why
do the governments let the private sector take all the initiatives, and the
profits, in this issue?
 Differences between countries
What´s interesting for me as a Swede reading about the German initiative
is that the forest industry (sawmills, pulp- & papermills) is not mentioned
at all. If anyone in Sweden would present an idea to pay forest owners to
leave the trees in the forest, the Swedish forest industry would not be
silent. They want their raw material, and they want in “now”!

In Sweden, according to the industry supported by the forest owner’s

associations, there is only, and should only be, one way to make a profit
from your forest – to cut it!

This discussion will for sure continue …

Excerpt In the US, services are offered to get paid by just letting the forest be. One
example is a company named SilviaTerra that matches carbon buyers to
forest landowners who wants to sell carbon storage. The landowner
chooses the payment level at which he or she wants to participate and
SilviaTerra tries to find a buyer who accepts that bid. When a deal is
closed, an annual contract is made where the landowner takes on
harvesting less volume than ordinarily planned for one year, increasing
the amount of carbon stored in the forest. Upon verification of the result,
the landowner receives payment for the additional carbon stored on the
property.
Publish date 17 May 2021
Type World news
Source https://www.forestry.com/editorial/profitable-carbon-storage/
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