Managing Forests because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy

The report examines the role of US forests and forest products in mitigating climate change, emphasizing that a rational policy must look beyond simple sequestration to include the carbon storage and substitution benefits of harvested wood. It analyzes forest carbon stocks and flows, the impact of climate-driven disturbances like wildfire and pests, and the life-cycle carbon benefits of using wood instead of steel or concrete. The authors critique the high transaction costs and measurement uncertainties of project-based carbon offsets, suggesting alternative policies such as information disclosure and updated building codes to promote the use of sustainable forest products.

• Sustainably managed forests provide a comprehensive set of climate benefits by combining carbon storage in live trees with the storage and substitution benefits of harvested forest products.
• Forest carbon sequestration rates typically peak in the first 100 to 150 years for most even-aged stands, after which they may become weak sinks or even carbon sources as tree mortality increases.
• In western North America, climate-driven disturbances such as wildfires and bark beetle outbreaks are converting some forests from carbon sinks into net carbon sources.
• Wood products have significantly lower embodied energy than comparable building materials like steel, aluminum, concrete, or plastic, leading to a substitution effect that reduces overall carbon emissions.
• On average, every tonne of wood used in products removes 2.1 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere through the substitution of more energy-intensive materials.
• The use of forest biomass for energy can be carbon-cycle neutral if harvests and mortality do not exceed net growth across the forest landscape.
• Project-based forest carbon offset protocols suffer from high transaction costs and significant variability in the number of credits generated for the same project depending on the protocol used.
• Market leakage—where demand is met by harvests outside a project boundary—is often underestimated in US offset projects, potentially overstating their global climate benefits.
• Measurement of forest carbon flux is hindered by 'model selection error,' which can be a larger source of uncertainty than sampling or measurement error.
• The report recommends policy alternatives to offsets, such as information disclosure on product emissions and the use of life-cycle assessments in building codes and procurement policies.

APA

Malmsheimer, R., Bowyer, J., Fried, J., Gee, E., Izlar, R., Miner, R., Munn, I., Oneil, E., & Stewart, W. (2011). Managing Forests because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy. Environmental and Energy Study Institute. https://www.eesi.org/files/JOFSupplement.pdf

Chicago

Malmsheimer, R.W., J.L. Bowyer, J.S. Fried, E. Gee, R.L. Izlar, R.A. Miner, I.A. Munn, E. Oneil, and W.C. Stewart. Managing Forests because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy. Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 2011. https://www.eesi.org/files/JOFSupplement.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{malmsheimer2011managing, author = {Malmsheimer, R.W. and Bowyer, J.L. and Fried, J.S. and Gee, E. and Izlar, R.L. and Miner, R.A. and Munn, I.A. and Oneil, E. and Stewart, W.C.}, title = {{Managing Forests because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2011}, month = oct, url = {https://www.eesi.org/files/JOFSupplement.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }