UNEP DTIE Energy Branch: Activities

Bringing Forest Carbon Projects to the Market
a new guidebook for forest project developers and investors

The guidebook, "Bringing Forest Carbon Projects to the Market," instructs project developers and financiers on how to develop and bring to market profitable forest carbon projects.
Although the markets for selling carbon credits have grown rapidly of late, forestry still plays a relatively minor role. This bottleneck in the demand for supply of forestry carbon persists, despite its tremendous potential to mitigate climate change (forest deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of annual global greenhouse emissions), and the significant developmental co-benefits that typically accompany well-designed forestry projects.

The guidebook seeks to provide insight on the issues that have thus far limited the forest carbon market and contribute much needed awareness-raising to the forestry sector. It focuses on the issues that have thus far limited the forest carbon market and contributes much needed awareness-raising to the forestry sector by aiming to stimulate investment and a pipeline of bankable projects. Particular emphasis is provided on real-world case studies, as the guidebook is in part based on a survey of over 350 forestry projects conducted between 2007 and 2009. The guidebook illustrates best practices, success stories developers can emulate, and pitfalls that should be avoided.

The guidebook addresses components of the forestry carbon project cycle from a finance and economics perspective. These often late stage considerations can be the most complicated part of bringing forestry projects to successful project completion. The guidebook will instruct developers on how to finance forest carbon projects and sell credits, including the factors to consider when registering a forestry project in the clean development mechanism (CDM) market or voluntary carbon market (VCM), instruct developers on how to manage forestry-specific risks, and provide an overview of the most recent state and the trends of the forestry carbon market.

The Guidebook is published in English, Spanish, and French, and is made possible by generous support provided by UNEP, ONFi, the BioCarbon Fund, and Agence Française de Développement.