Climate Compensation through Forestry Initiatives: An analysis to support corporate compensation decisions

Sammanfattning: An increasing number of companies are now publicly committing to becoming carbon neutral or achieving net-zero emissions. While most organisations will focus on preventative measures to reach their targets, climate compensation will also make up part of a company’s carbon management strategy. Initial reports indicate that corporate investments in forestry-related initiatives have significantly increased in recent years. However, there is currently a lack of competence and guidance regarding how to develop credible carbon targets and strategies that involve such compensation initiatives. This research provides a detailed description of the current landscape of corporate climate compensation and the different forestry-related initiatives that companies are investing in to achieve their ambitious targets. It also identifies when a company’s climate compensation actions are perceived as credible from the perspective of salient stakeholders. Data collection involved reviewing the webpages and sustainability reports from 16 companies with investments in or involvement with forestry-related initiatives. Position reports, guidance documents and webinars published by environmental NGOs, global voluntary initiatives, voluntary standards and consultants were also analysed. Further, nine interviews with corporate sustainability professionals, environmental NGOs and consultancy firms were conducted. This research highlights the rapidly evolving field of climate compensation and has provided evidence for the current growth and development in forestry-related initiatives used in the corporate sector. It has also uncovered various uncertainties that exist surrounding the credibility of climate claims, strategies and the mitigation approaches available to address residual emissions. Findings demonstrate that there is an urgent need for actors in the field to achieve alignment on definitions and credible approaches to net-zero to avoid confusion and to drive ambitious and impactful climate action. Areas of future research include exploring developments of corporate carbon frameworks, guidance and definitions and addressing the views of actors not addressed in this study such as local-NGOs, policymakers and government officials.