CarbonForest 2011

What a week, just got back from Carbon Forest 2011 where EnviroManage presented CO2Forest to 300+ people for the first time. The conference was in Auckland over 2 days and attracted delegates from all over the world, mostly talking about the forestry perspective of the NZ Emission Trading Scheme, but also touching on voluntary forestry carbon credit schemes (REDD, VCS, etc.) and a few other non-compliance related topics. All the talks were related to the role forests will play in the carbon constrained future. It was clear that New Zealand has had a long history of sustainable forest management and is in a prime position to be key player in exporting standards and technolologies in this area for other nations.

EnviroManage was proud to be a sponsor and speaker at this event, the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere, and possibly the world(?).  Our presentation on CO2Forest (600kB) was an overview of our carbon forest solution that provides a common software platform for implementing not just NZ ETS but other emerging voluntary standards, with the aim to help reduce compliance costs and create new carbon forest opportunities.  

A summary of some of the key observations from the event:

1) that the NZ ETS compliance market is crowded with advisors, banks and traders thinking this is another commodity they can exploit.

2) that NZ is a nation largely covered in plantation forest but only capable of offsetting about 15% of our annual transport and agriculture emissions. Post 1990 plantation forest represents about 3% of the total NZ carbon stock and is the primary source of credits for the NZ ETS. Easy 'free' money as viewed by the big forestry companies. 

3) that the NZ ETS is very successful in creating credits for the government (8.3 million units) with little effect on the nations GHG emissions (dropped 3% since 2008 due to the slowdown of the economy).

4) the price of NZ ETS is likely to remain depressed for some time. Reason is that as supply (forestry = 8.3 million NZU) must sell in NZ and currently outstrips demand which is smaller in size (at 5.3 Million NZU) and can shop for credits offshore in any Kyoto compliance market. 

5) the ETS forestry market has peaked (with about 100 offsetters and 200 forestry suppliers) with the next big ticket items being the growth voluntary carbon forest market (including indigenous forests owned by Maori) and a merger of the Australian and NZ ETS in 2015.