Duke Forest Carbon
Abstract
Duke University is dedicated to achieving climate neutrality by 2024. With over 7000
acres of sustainably managed forest land, the Duke Forest has great potential for
generating “in house” carbon offsets to help reach this goal. In this project we
quantified the carbon represented in Duke’s forest holdings and analyzed the potential
for generating emissions-reducing offsets based on Climate Action Reserve (CAR) and
American Carbon Registry (ACR) protocols. Throughout the process we focused on three
varieties of forest offsets: Avoided Conversion, Improved Forest Management, and Afforestation/Reforestation,
comparing the relative advantages and disadvantages of each under CAR and ACR carbon
accounting systems. After completing these carbon calculations we conducted a financial
analysis of our results in order to make recommendations to the Duke Carbon Offsets
Initiative concerning how they might apply these forest offsets toward the university’s
carbon neutrality goal.
Ultimately we concluded that the Duke Forest has the potential to produce significant
amounts of high quality carbon offsets at a cost considerably below that of purchasing
them on the voluntary market. The generation of Improved Forest Management offsets
under CAR protocols proved particularly compatible with current Duke Forest management
practices, yielding substantial carbon and financial benefits with minimal project
development investment. Based on the results of our carbon and financial models we
determined that the Duke Forest could generate 358,109 offset credits over the next
50 years, saving the university over $1.5 million.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4949Citation
Downing, Eric; Fulton, Erin; & Strauss, Joshua (2011). Duke Forest Carbon. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4949.Collections
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