There are a lot of wood-centered conversations going on right now. We’re all connected to different networks and communities in this multi-disciplinary conversation. Let’s use this thread to share events, webinars, conferences, and workshops that might be of interest across the group.
Hello,
For anyone that wants to deepen your understanding of how our wood sourcing work intersects with drinking water, I want to share a conference coming up on forest management and drinking water. Shreejita Basu will be presenting on a panel as it relates to community forest water modeling work she’s been involved in using the EPA’s VELMA forest management water model. More broadly, there is a large body of science that helps us understand how forestry can have positive impacts on water and ecosystem health in some instances and negative impacts in others.
This topic has a direct impact on our Climate Smart Forestry goals. I would invite anyone interested in registering.
She will be presenting Friday March 12, 10:15 a.m. Water Quantity Panel
Summary of the science review on water quantity followed by practical presentations on managing for a range of water yields by forestry and water professionals
- Dr. Kevin Bladon, Oregon State University
- Dr. Shreejita Basu, Sustainable Northwest
sounds good.
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share some information about an upcoming webinar that covers topics that fall squarely between several of our working groups – namely the gap in accounting for land-based climate solutions such as forest management. For folks who cannot join but are interested, I’ll see if I can get a recording of the webinar linked to our Knowledge Hub.
See the link below to register for the event.
Cheers,
Steph
Greenhouse Gas Protocol AND Science-based Targets for Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG)
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), WWF, and WRI invite you to join a webinar update on Wednesday, March 3, at 11:00 AM EST to cover
- Update on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s land sector and removals guidance
- Update on the SBTi Forest, Land, and Agriculture (FLAG) sector development project
- Q&A session
REGISTER HERE
These two efforts are jointly addressing an important gap in corporate climate accounting and enabling companies to incorporate land-related emissions in their climate targets.
For those unable to join live, a recording will be available after the webinar.
Thanks for posting, I am registered and looking forward to the event.
Looks like clear guidance on the accounting protocol for forestland, management, and wood products isn’t coming right away. Based on this webinar today, the SBTi Forest, Land, and Agriculture (FLAG) sector development project is a little farther behind than I had hoped. They are in a “draft pilot phase” Some rough/draft language will be available for review and comment later this year with a final report due in 2022.
It will be interesting in the meantime to figure out how to align with this forthcoming guidance and what that may mean for tracking changes in carbon stock in the landscape, for biogenic carbon across forest-product supply chains broadly, allocating carbon credits associated with improved or climate-smart forest management to either forestry practices/owners or wood products (but not both), and their forthcoming statements about carbon neutrality assumptions. I’m sure someone in the working groups might be more up to speed on this than I am.
Most of the questions posed on the webinar today were answered with a determined, "yes, that will be included, no statement right now. There is a lot of debate within the working groups…
I agree Stephanie. Glad I listened in on this. I think it will be interesting to see how increasing carbon in forests can be used by for a example a beverage seller who uses paper packaging (including any recycled content). Who gets to count the carbon in their target to reduce GHG?
Pat
This is another area where people like Werner Kurz have expertise. There are international agreements as to who gets to count what —is it the originating country, which gets to count the regenerated carbon? the manufacturer? the building owner? the destination country? — and it varies based on the product (biomass, structural use?) and then the issue about bionic carbon and time frames.
While it is complex — and to be honest I don;t understand some of the complexities that went onto developing these agreements — I think it is important to have some alignment.
