Jason, Can you please send me the link to the vision statement as I have not found it? Thanks a bunch.
Pat
Thanks
PATRICIA LAYTON CLEMSON UNIVERSITY
Director
Wood Utilization + Design Institute
321 Harris Smith Building
864.505.5904
Clemson.edu/wud
facebook.com/wudclemson/
Twitter/@wudclemson
A couple of reports From Dovetail Partners (and one of the authors has been accredited by both FSC and PEFC.)
| playton Patricia A. Layton
March 1 |
- | - |
Thanks
PATRICIA LAYTON CLEMSON UNIVERSITY
Director
Wood Utilization + Design Institute
321 Harris Smith Building
864.505.5904
Clemson.edu/wud
facebook.com/wudclemson/
Twitter/@wudclemson
Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.
To unsubscribe from these emails, click here.
Peter Moonen
National Sustainability Manager
Canadian Wood Council
Toll-free: 1.877.929.9663, ext. 4
Ph: 604.886.0033
Fax: 604.886.6878
Cell: 604.399.9990
pmoonen@cwc.ca
www.cwc.ca
www.wood-works.ca
Twitter: PeterMoonen1
Forest Certification Update.pdf (887 KB)
Forest Certification Experience.pdf (3.77 MB)
This is a truly exciting conversation, and I appreciate being in the presence of such a diverse group of experts on this broad and complex discussion.
We’ve talked a lot about how to identify climate-smart wood, and how to communicate to designers and building owners how and why to choose climate smart forest products. I want to bring up the pressure of relying a high-risk, competitive building market to accept a premium for adopting a climate-change mitigation strategy ahead of regulatory requirements to do so. This behavioral and economic factor is important to consider because we are necessarily speculating about these actions happening at scale - potentially 17,000 buildings per year, as has been cited several times on this thread.
Relying on the behavior of building industry investors to support climate smart premiums will require them to make a decision to either (a) pass on premiums to building occupants or (b) reduce projected returns. In the case of passing along premiums, that creates higher rents for housing, retail, office space, which in turn creates higher costs for goods and services, etc, in addition to adding risk to the venture for the developer (higher rents = slower lease-up). In such a high-risk industry, would enough developers be willing to accept a reduced target ROI, and pay these premiums to push the market in a meaningful way? How does this contribute to livability/affordability in the US? Who is really taking on the premiums?
Ultimately, I think we’d agree that all forestry should eventually be climate smart (however you get there). To transition the market away from anything less-than-smart, there needs to be a clear path identified to balance costs, which could happen at the forest level (subsidies for transitioning to CS), at the forest products level (buy CS, get carbon credits), or incentives at the building dev level (incentives for low- or net-zero carbon construction).
Or, framed as a question: How does the premium/risk equation balance for maximum uptake of climate smart wood in the building industry?
This all overlaps quite a bit with Collective Action, but is important for our Procurement group to consider as well.
This is definitely more of a collective action question, but: What is the most climate- and market- effective way for “carbon credits” to be applied, presuming that it is climate smart to build buildings out of CS wood? At the forest level, or the building level? We need an economist!
1 Like
This makes sense, Emily - cost premiums related to the higher costs of doing climate-smarter forestry are probably the biggest barrier for getting this to scale. The Collective Action working group has started to look at policy proposals that might address this. For instance, the Food & Agriculture Climate Alliance’s policy recommendations include:
– one for “a new construction tax credit for building with materials that have a lower carbon footprint. The transferrable tax credit would go to the developer of the project or to the entity making most of the decisions/investments in materials for the project. (Projects include residential and multi-story buildings and other buildings, including those providing additional social benefits, such as schools, affordable housing and infrastructure investments.) The amount of the tax credit would be based on the value of the building, not the land, and determined by the building’s carbon footprint score.”
– one for “transferrable tax credits, provided for carbon sequestered, captured and used over a baseline, would incentivize carbon sequestration in forests and storage in wood products;” and for building out “a carbon crediting approach that could apply in the private sector (e.g., with a large brand seeking to validate their investments in carbon removals), as well as in other voluntary markets.”
1 Like
I thought everyone might like to read this article from nature sustainability, Buildings as a global carbon sink. Yale and other authors.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0462-4
Pat, can’t access the paper; it is behind a pay wall
I don’t think Galina or Allen would mind if I shared my personal copy. Please find it here: Churkina Organschi_2020_Buildings as a Global Carbon Sink.pdf - Google Drive
For more on the topic you can access Galina Churkina’s panel talk from our recent Wood at Work Community of practice meeting (Dec 2020) Wood at Work 2020 - Home | Wood At Work where she presented alongside Chad Oliver, Tim Searchinger, William Keeton and Peter Pinchot. The talks are best taken as a set (followed by an important discussion) but we will be sharing Tim’s and Bill’s separately in the knowledge hub. Please reach out to me with questions. - Scott Francisco
1 Like
Pat, Did my links come through?
Thank you Scott, for sharing.
Pat
Dear All,
Happy to share copies of our Nature Sustainability Perspective. (Scott, thanks so much for distributing.)
Best,
Alan
Alan Organschi
Principal
Gray Organschi Architecture
35 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06510
www.grayorganschi.com
203.777.7794 tel
203.782.0940 fax
Emily - this is a great question! What if the “credit” could pass from the forest to the wood product to the building? The carbon stays (and doesn’t change), but the credit itself can pass from where the carbon originated to where it might land in the end? That way we aren’t overstating the carbon benefit and we’re able to pass the credits downstream. Is that too simple?
Hi Ara, I think this is a great idea and is analogous to Renewable Energy Credit / Certificates (RECs).
As I posted in reply to an earlier post the “Green energy” or renewable energy procurement is tracked using Renewable Energy Credit / Certificates (RECs). More can be found from the resources here: Renewable Energy Certificates | CRS
Intro video: What Is a Renewable Energy Certificate? - YouTube
There are a variety of markets for RECs and there are additional criteria that can be put on the RECs to meet certain goals (e.g. vintage, location, generation source).
I’m happy to go into this future if it is helpful and I do find the analogy an interesting comparison, which might identify potential solutions for the procurement challenges.
I think it’s a good idea too. One question would be, who administers it and keeps everyone honest? But if RECs are the same concept, sure someone has worked this out.
This should be captured by adding it to our list of Challenges/Solutions. It could be a subset of decision tree / menu approach.
Jacob - I think this is a great idea so I have started inputting data. I would be happy to focus on the California FPR and maybe you or someone else can focus on WA, OR, and Canada.
I filled in what I think I know outside of California but admittedly I am not sure so please correct me if I am wrong. I am sure @paulv could crush out OR and WA really quick! And I think @pmoonen1 on the Canadian Wood Council would know the Canadian rules better than me.
Suggestion: we fill out and focus on retention rate first as that seems to be the biggest factor driving forest resilience and that is driving carbon sequestration per Diaz’s report.
You are missing some indicators, I am posting these again for you to consider.
