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With the rise in awareness and concern about the effects of climate change, voluntary carbon offset programs have begun to proliferate in the United States and around the world. However, because this voluntary market is unregulated, organizations offering offsets hold themselves to varying standards.
We offer the following answers to frequently asked questions to address any concerns about The Nature Conservancy’s voluntary carbon offset program. If you have any additional questions, concerns, or comments about the offset program, please don’t hesitate to contact us and tell us what you think about climate change, forest carbon projects, and the carbon market.
What exactly are the carbon “offsets” The Nature Conservancy is offering?
Will carbon offsets solve climate change?
How is The Nature Conservancy’s offset program different from other offset programs?
Do my offsets contribute to a particular project?
Why does the Conservancy have an offset program when there are so many others out there?
Why do different offset programs charge different amounts for a ton of carbon?
I’ve heard carbon offsets don’t really help mitigate climate change. Why should I buy offsets?
Are these offsets verified by a third-party? What type of standards are you following?
How can I be sure these offsets are sequestering the amount of carbon you say they are?
Wouldn’t it be better to sell carbon that has already been stored?
How can I be sure that the carbon that you say you will capture over 70 years will really be stored?
Is the Conservancy committed to the projects in the offset program far into the future?
What happens if the forest burns down?
Won’t forest offsets distract us from fossil fuel emissions reductions?
What exactly are the carbon offsets The Nature Conservancy is offering?
By contributing to the Conservancy’s voluntary carbon offset program you are helping fund a Nature Conservancy projects that are specifically designed to sequester carbon and thus, help reduce the effects of climate change caused by carbon emissions. When you make a contribution, your money will be used to set aside land, provide funds for forest conservation, plant trees and measure and verify the amount of carbon sequestered over the next 70 years, by when the forest will have matured.
Through our offset program you are given the option of making this contribution in a way that is commensurate with our scientific estimates of the amount of carbon sequestration that will be stored as a result of efforts we undertake with your contribution. By using The Conservancy’s carbon calculator, you can measure your “carbon footprint” (how many tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases your lifestyle creates each year), and then “offset” all or a portion of that carbon footprint by contributing to the program.
Users may choose to offset only a portion of their carbon footprint, or choose to contribute to the offset program through monthly installments.
The Conservancy’s voluntary carbon offsets are not the same as the offsets that businesses could use if the U.S. takes the important step of enacting mandatory policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Read more about this here.
Remember that the first and most important step we can take to help fight climate change is to make choices that will reduce our overall emissions. But offsets are a supplemental way of making a difference that can further reduce your impact on climate change. Unlike many offsets you might find in the marketplace, The Nature Conservancy’s offsets are designed to offer additional benefits for the environment.
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Will carbon offsets solve climate change?
No, but they will help. Carbon offsets are a part of the comprehensive changes individuals, businesses, and governments must make to begin mitigating climate change. The best thing we can do to help fight climate change is to make choices about our homes, our travel, the food we eat, and what we buy and throw away that will reduce our overall emissions.
By contributing to the carbon offset program you will be joining with a community of individuals to make a larger impact on the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere.
It is important to remember that the carbon “offset” from this program will take about 70 years to come to fruition, because the carbon is stored gradually as trees grow and mature. So the carbon you “offset” this year will not be fully accounted for until about 70 years from now. This is why making personal decisions to reduce your emissions now is critical.
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How is The Nature Conservancy’s offset program different from other offset programs?
Voluntary carbon offset programs have proliferated as awareness and concern for the effects of climate change have become more widely known. Like The Nature Conservancy, some other offset programs depend on trees to sequester carbon. Still others solicit contributions for renewable energy projects that are in the process of being built, and contributions are used to purchase renewable energy credits from programs that are already up and running. Some programs offset carbon by using a variety of these tactics.
Because these offset programs constitute an unregulated voluntary business, organizations that offer offsets hold themselves to various standards and third-party verification methods. The Conservancy program has been designed and implemented by climate change and forest experts with years of experience analyzing, measuring and verifying carbon sequestration projects The sequestration projects will be held to standards set by Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) and VCS-accredited verifiers will review the results once every five years as the trees mature. The project has also been designed to meet the project design standards set by the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance. All carbon offsets in this program will be retired so that no one can seek a contribution for the same offset again.
One of the important differences between The Nature Conservancy’s offset program and those of some others is that the funding that comes from you is truly driving new and additional carbon sequestration that would not have happened without your support. We charge you the full amount that The Nature Conservancy incurs to produce the “offset”, and use the funding directly to set land aside, plant trees, provide funds for forest conservation, measure and verify carbon sequestration, and provide for management and oversight to ensure the long-term success of the program.
Furthermore, the Nature Conservancy’s program employs safeguards to assure that the carbon captured via our program is sequestered for the long term. And, our program applies a very conservative approach to dealing with potential leakage.
And as noted above, The Conservancy’s offsets offer additional benefits for the local environment and the community.
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Do my offset contributions help support actual projects project?
Yes, all contributions to the offset program benefit real on-the-ground conservation projects with verifiable carbon offset benefits. The first project in the carbon offset program is the Tensas River Basin Project in the Lower Mississippi Valley. For the project, the Conservancy is reforesting private lands to sequester carbon and restore critical habitat to native species. This project is part of an area that is important for conservation. It contains one of the largest remaining fragments of bottomland hardwood forest, supports the largest known population of Louisiana Black Bear, and contains several priority bird conservation areas.
You can find out more details about the Tensas River Basin Project by reading our project profile. We will be providing similar information and profiles on new projects as they are added to the carbon offset program. As the carbon offset program grows we will be adding additional projects in new geographies to the program.
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Why does the Conservancy have an offset program when there are so many others out there?
The Nature Conservancy believes that reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and capturing carbon through forest restoration are critical to the fight against climate change. One of the best ways to restore forests and stop deforestation is to create markets that will place an appropriate value on forests and the carbon they store. We view our offset program as a credible and practical example of how to do it right for such a market.
In addition, the offset program provides the opportunity for Conservancy donors who are passionate about mitigating climate change to take direct action that is both personal, and contributes to a larger nature conservation project that will have a measurable impact on helping to fight climate change.
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Why do different offset programs charge different amounts for a ton of carbon?
The amount charged by a voluntary offset program may differ for various reasons such as the overhead of the carbon project, and any profit taken by the program.
The Nature Conservancy has set its contribution amounts based on the actual cost to our organization of capturing a ton of carbon dioxide. These costs are primarily the cost of setting land aside for this practice, and the cost of planting the trees. We also include the much smaller costs of project management, and measuring and verifying the amount of carbon stored. Finally, the Conservancy has taken pains to ensure that our offsets meet very exacting quality standards. As part of this assurance, we are reserving a substantial part of the offsets in order to account for and address potential leakage and permanence issues associated with forest-based sequestration projects. In the case of the Tensas River Basin Project, the reserve amounts to 40 percent. We have figured the cost of this reserve into the amount of the contribution we are seeking.
The Conservancy’s calculator provides users with their carbon footprint measured in US short tons, while much of the carbon market standard measures carbon dioxide in metric tons. This results in slightly different costs per ton of carbon offset.
When comparing the Conservancy’s offset costs to those of other offset programs, it is important to take into account the standards of both programs and how that will affect costs. The offsets the Conservancy is offering include the various protections described in this document to ensure that the full amount of carbon offsets that are being set aside for you will be realized.
It is also important to pay attention to how the programs are measuring and setting the amounts they seek for carbon dioxide offsets. All of the money collected through the Conservancy’s offset program will go directly to carbon dioxide sequestration projects, and will only be used to fund sequestration projects. There is no profit-taking involved in the carbon offset program.
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I’ve heard carbon offsets don’t really help mitigate climate change. Why should I buy offsets?
Contributing to the carbon offset program will have a measurable impact on reducing greenhouse gases, and will help restore and protect critical habitat across the country and around the world.
Because the voluntary carbon offset market is not regulated, the quality of offsets can vary widely. This variance has led to increased scrutiny and skepticism, and we agree that there are challenges that can and must be managed to produce real offsets. The Nature Conservancy’s carbon offset program produces measurable reductions in greenhouse gases. These projects are critically important to creating markets where forests are valued for the greenhouse gases they store and the habitats and natural services – such as healthy watersheds -- they provide. In developing this program, we have done significant work to assure that the offsets we offer meet exceptionally high standards of quality.
However, contributing to a carbon offset program is not an adequate substitute for making lifestyle changes that will significantly reduce the emissions your activities produce.
Are these offsets verified by a third-party? What type of standards are you following?
The Conservancy program has been designed and implemented by climate change and forest experts with years of experience analyzing, measuring and verifying carbon sequestration projects. We are holding the sequestration projects to standards set by Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). External experts accredited by VCS will verify carbon storage once every five years. The projects in the program will also be designed to meet the standards set by the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance. All carbon offsets in this program will be retired, so they cannot be double counted.
Our carbon offset program will rigorously account for additionality, measurement, leakage, permanence, and verification throughout the life of the projects. This will ensure that direct and indirect carbon sequestration resulting from the projects is taken into account; the forests restored through the program will be protected for future generations; and contributions to the program will result in conservation work that otherwise would not have been done.
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How can I be sure these offsets are sequestering the amount of carbon you say they are?
In order for a carbon sequestration project to be effective in mitigating climate change, it must address certain issues, including:
- Additionality, which refers to the amount of carbon dioxide captured, stored or prevented from reaching the atmosphere compared to what would happen without the project. In other words, is this something that would have happened anyway?
- Measurement and monitoring, which entails periodic field measurements of forest growth and associated capture and storage of carbon.
- Leakage, which occurs when emissions avoided within a site are not eliminated, but rather shifted to another location, or when sequestration at a site leads to land clearing elsewhere.
- Permanence, which, simply stated, is the life of the project. It wouldn’t help to reduce climate change much if a tree were planted one year only to be cut the next. The most desirable carbon sequestration projects are those where the restored forests are likely to remain intact indefinitely.
- Verification, which occurs throughout the life of a project to ensure it meets its intended goals of carbon sequestration and that all additionality, measurement, leakage and permanence requirements are being met.
The projects in the Conservancy’s offset program address these issues in the following ways:
- Additionality -- The costs of program projects are funded via carbon offset contributions. Revenue from carbon offset contributions provides the funding to pay the costs of not only setting aside land for these projects, but also tree planting and ongoing project management. Without this source of revenue, the implementation of this project would not have been possible.
Drawing on 12 years of experience in the forest carbon market, the Conservancy is uniquely prepared to address questions of additionality that are critical to establishing the integrity of carbon benefits. In particular, our approach, which hinges on the critical investment in protecting lands that were not previously protected, demonstrates that the generation and continued storage of forest carbon can be attributed directly to the participants’ contributions. - Measurement and monitoring – Field measurements of forest growth will be undertaken once every five years, and will be based upon well-established forest inventory and scientific principles. These measurements will be made available for review.
- Leakage – Our offset projects are carefully designed to address leakage in two ways. First, the Conservancy is focusing our tree planting on unproductive crop land on which native trees will grow very well. Second, the Conservancy will discount carbon sequestered from its offset projects in order to account for leakage that may occur. This is in accordance with VCS standards, and independent studies that suggest an appropriate and conservative way to account for leakage(1).
Put simply, while we are working on unproductive crop lands, which will help to minimize leakage, the Conservancy is withholding from the carbon offset program a portion of the carbon dioxide stored in each project to account for any unintentional land clearing that may occur elsewhere as a result of these projects.
- Permanence -- The Conservancy is putting into place several safeguards to protect the carbon stored in these new forests now and into the future. We will maintain a permanent easement on the project. In addition, offsets are being placed into a reserve -- that will not be made available to the offset program -- to account for any natural damage that could occur to the project down the road.
For instance, if trees are damaged or killed in a storm or due to another cause outside of our control, these reserve trees will essentially replace them within the offset program. This reserve will also provide protection if the project does not meet the expected carbon sequestration performance goals. - Verification – Every year, local Conservancy stewardship staff will ensure that the projects are being implemented successfully. Staff will measure carbon storage for every project within the carbon offset program for its expected carbon sequestration performance goals, and those measurements will be verified once every five years. Participants in the carbon storage program will receive regular reports from this testing – as well as any other news regarding the program – as it is warranted.
In addition, The Conservancy is pursuing certification under Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) for carbon storage in the projects. The project has also been designed to meet the project design standards set by the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance
I’ve heard that planting trees, particularly in temperate areas, is not a good way to offset carbon emissions. Is this true?
The loss of forests and other land use changes contribute about one-fifth of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into Earth’s atmosphere each year. Therefore, forest protection and restoration are a necessary and important part of any comprehensive approach to decreasing atmospheric CO2 levels and reducing the impacts of climate change. Tree planting is an important strategy in restoring forests around the world. We are simply replanting native forests where they naturally occur.
As for temperate zone projects, an initial study(2), while preliminary in nature, has found that the impact of reforestation on global temperatures may vary depending upon the latitude or distance from the equator. The authors of this albedo effect(3) study agree with the fact that trees are an effective means for sequestering carbon. In the lower latitudes of the tropics, replanting forests offers a significant global cooling benefit. However, at higher latitudes such as in the northern boreal areas, the climate change benefits from reforestation could be much less than expected because of warming that happens when the sun's heat is absorbed by the darker forest canopy, rather than reflected by snow on the ground that would presumably be present in these northern areas.
While some of the projects within the carbon offset program are found in temperate zones, the project area in the Lower Mississippi Valley is in the lower latitudes of the temperate zone, near 30 degrees, with no snowfall. The study’s authors agree that forests in areas without a significant amount of seasonal snow cover are generally likely to exert a net cooling influence.
Wouldn’t it be better to sell carbon that has already been stored?
Project economics and forest biology dictate that over 80 percent of the costs of these projects is incurred in the first 3 years, while the carbon benefits are realized over a longer period of time. Because there is currently no “price” on carbon in the United States, except what people are willing to pay for it on a voluntary basis, it would be very difficult to finance a carbon offset project that requires the developer to wait so many years to recover his or her investment, and to rely on voluntary contributions in doing so. Thus, carbon that has already been stored would most easily come from activities that would have happened anyway. In the context of today’s voluntary market, taking contributions today for a future stream of offsets is the best way to ensure that the carbon funding is what is driving the reforestation – a key point for additionality. Consequently, almost all voluntary carbon offset providers market carbon benefits that will accrue over future years.
In a compliance market, for example in association with a greenhouse gas cap and trade bill, credits should be awarded only after the carbon storage has occurred and been verified. This ensures that real reductions are directly offsetting, in the same timeframe, other emissions. In this way forest carbon offsets are treated under the cap just like emission reductions from factories, power plants, cars and other sources.
A cap and trade law would provide a long term signal to the market that storing and reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have increasing value over time. Such a market signal is needed to drive forest carbon projects like these. Once a long term carbon price signal is in place, it is likely that more investors will provide the up front financing needed to start forest carbon projects like these with the expectation that they will recoup their costs through subsequent sales of carbon credits. Until a compliance market is in place, few investors are willing to take this financial risk.
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Are these the same as offsets that could be used by companies in the cap-and-trade bills Congress is considering to place mandatory limits on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions?
The voluntary carbon offsets we are offering are very similar, but not exactly the same as the offsets that could be used under these bills. The Conservancy’s program addresses additionality, measurement, leakage, and verification in ways that are similar to the kinds of approaches that we are suggesting for policy. The differences between these offsets and those that could be used under cap-and-trade bills relate primarily to the timing of crediting offset activities under cap and trade and the liability that would be established under a mandatory program to ensure that offsets represent real and permanent reductions.
We are calculating your contribution to the amount that we anticipate will be offset over 70 years after taking into account natural risks, leakage, and using the best scientific information at hand to predict forest growth. Similarly, a company might invest up front in return for rights to offsets generated over time. In either case we would monitor forest growth using appropriate scientific methods, and have that growth verified by external experts. In a regulatory environment with crediting, credits would be awarded only after the forest growth was verified. This maintains the integrity of the mandatory emissions limits by ensuring that real reductions are directly offsetting, in the same timeframe, other emissions that are controlled under the cap.
In a voluntary market, the lack of mandatory policies means that the long term demand for offsets are less clear to a potential investor. Thus, developing forest carbon projects for the voluntary market requires a different financing model than would operate in the market that could be created by cap-and-trade legislation.
With regard to the liability regime that applies to these offsets, we have gone to great lengths to self-insure by placing offsets in a reserve to account for natural risks over time, but there is a small chance that losses will exceed those from this reserve. In a cap and trade bill, if that were to happen either the buyer or the seller of the offsets would need to be held responsible for making up for the losses.
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How can I be sure that the carbon that you say you will capture over 70 years will really be stored?
First, we have used the best available forest science, and conducted new research on forest growth in the project area, to develop a very sound estimate of the amount of carbon that will be captured and stored over 70 years after taking into account natural risks, and leakage. We believe this number is conservative. Our studies indicate that in fact the project may reach the amount needed to offset your emissions as early as 50 years after planting, even after placing offsets into a buffer to protect against leakage and permanence risks. If there are no losses to permanence risks, or the project otherwise performs better than our projections, your emissions could be offset earlier. In that case your contribution may offset even more carbon than you intended.
Second, we are conducting forest monitoring to determine the amount of carbon stored and providing updated reports once every five years. We will have our methods and results assessed by external experts using the Voluntary Carbon Standards.
Finally, The Conservancy holds a permanent easement on the project that will restrict future use of the land to maintain forests.
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Is the Conservancy committed to the projects in the offset program far into the future?
Yes. The Conservancy will maintain a commitment to these projects by holding and monitoring conservation easements that legally protect the forests, and will measure the carbon sequestration of the forests until offset goals are met. Projects within the program may be sold to conservation buyers to help defray the costs of land acquisition. Projects transferred to conservation buyers maintain the conservation easement to ensure the long-term protection of the forests. All projects entered into the Conservancy’s offset program will remain as natural, forested landscapes even after they have met their carbon sequestration goals.
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What happens if the forest burns down?
Historical studies show that the risk of complete forest loss to fire or other natural factors in this region is small. To help protect the program against this limited risk, the Conservancy is withholding a percentage of the carbon offset from each project entered into the carbon offset program, and will not take offset contributions related to these “set-asides.” These offsets are pooled together to create a reserve for the overall program and provide a safeguard against catastrophic loss in any one project within the program. This strategy is required by the Voluntary Carbon Standard, and will be applied to the Conservancy’s carbon offset program. In the extremely unlikely case that a project suffers from a catastrophic loss, such as a fire, part of the reserve pool will be used to cover the loss.
In the early stages of the carbon offset program, the Conservancy has built replanting into the budget of each project should the restoration work be hampered by a drought or other factor. Given our conservative estimates of forest growth, mortality in the first 5 to 10 years of the project should not prevent us from meeting our goals of offsetting emissions within 70 years.
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Won’t forest offsets distract us from fossil fuel emissions reductions?
The Conservancy believes that reducing fossil fuel emissions is critical to stemming the effects of climate change. We work with governments at state, federal, and international levels to enact laws that would reduce emission levels from all major economic sectors responsible for carbon emissions, including energy, transportation and deforestation.
However, we also recognize that deforestation produces as much as 20 to 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore forest conservation and restoration must play a meaningful role in any successful effort to avoid dangerous climate change. The Conservancy has unique expertise in reducing emissions through deforestation, and has concentrated much of its efforts to fight climate change in this area. Our carbon offset program is just one example of this work.
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How would passage of a cap-and-trade bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions change the carbon market?
The current market in which we are offering these offsets is a voluntary market. Contributors to offset programs do so as concerned citizens who want to make a difference in helping to avoid dangerous climate change. Voluntary action is an important avenue that can help to address this far-reaching challenge, but it will not be possible to meet a test of the magnitude posed by climate change without concerted action by businesses and governments, as well as individuals.
Legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions using the market-based “cap-and-trade” approach is currently under consideration in the Congress, in many states, and internationally. Some states, for example, in the Northeast, have recently adopted such a program to control emissions from electric power generation. Enacting these programs will send a price signal to the market that will place a value on greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon storage. Pricing carbon in this way will direct investments toward a host of activities such as improved energy efficiency, low-carbon technology, and forest conservation and restoration. Without a price on carbon to assure a return on their investment, those who would like to engage in these activities will find it difficult in many cases to attract financing.
Passage of cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S. and more comprehensive coverage of emissions internationally will create a new compliance market that will cover many source of emissions. Individuals may still wish to offset their emissions and thus it is likely that a voluntary market like the current one would remain, though it is possible that regulatory standards would be set for these markets also.
Depending on how it is designed, such a compliance carbon market could drive billions of dollars per year to forest conservation and restoration in landscapes such as the Lower Mississippi Valley, the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests of Brazil, and East Kalimantan in Indonesia, helping to protect and restore millions of acres. The Conservancy’s forest carbon offset program is helping to set the stage for such an outcome by demonstrating how forest carbon offsets can work.
1. Murray, B.C., B.A. McCarl, and H. Lee. 2004. “Estimating Leakage from Forest Carbon Sequestration Programs.” Land Economics 80(1):109-124
2. Gibbard, S., K. Caldeira, G. Bala, T.J. Phillips, and M. Wicket. 2005. Climate effects of global land cover change. Geophysical Research Letters. 32. L23705.
3. Albedo refers to the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface, which varies depending on the type of land cover or water surface present.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Byron Jorjorian (oak tree); Photo © Byron Jorjorian (cypress tree).
