Carbon Enhancement & Climate-smart Forestry

Grow the healthiest, most vigorous, and largest trees for as long as possible.

Forested land serves a critical role in the atmospheric carbon cycle, and by extension, climate change. Through photosynthesis, plants convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates that are used for cellular growth, and ultimately accumulate that carbon in the form of biomass. While forests can serve as long-term repositories of carbon, harvest activities can affect how forests accumulate carbon in the form of dead wood and can adjust their rate of atmospheric carbon consumption based on growth patterns using different management regimes. While forests provide both solid wood products that hold their carbon for a very long time, such as framing material, engineered lumber, finished hardwood and softwood lumber, forests also provide wood fiber for consumable or renewable purposes, such as paper products and fuel for electricity and heat. 

Depending on whether one considers a 10 year or 100 year time horizon of the carbon cycle, the discussion can be very complicated. Our objective is to permanently store carbon in the form of durable building products and woody biomass in the forest, and shift the focus from harvesting “consumable” wood products that release embodied carbon sooner.