Analysis of the Production and Transaction Costs of Forest Carbon Offset Projects in the USA

Forested lands in the United States represent a significant carbon sink and could play an important role in climate change mitigation. In a new article in the Journal of Environmental Management, researchers examine the costs associated with forest carbon offset project implementation and the potential for these costs to present an important barrier to private landowner participation in emerging carbon offset markets. Because of the sheer number of factors that can influence the relative and absolute costs of a forest carbon offset project, the study uses a custom spreadsheet model and accounting tool to explore implementation costs of different forest offset project types operating in different forest types under different accounting and sampling methodologies.