About

greenhouse gas offset program, through tree planting

Fighting climate change

There are three accountable ways to fight climate change today:

  • Reducing greenhouse gas source emissions (e.g. by reducing reliance on fossil fuels).
  • Mitigating the impacts of past and/or unavoidable emissions (e.g. by planting trees to offset emissions).
  • Adapting to climate change (e.g. by protecting coastal areas).

The forest sector can play a significant role in mitigating global warming. Today, forests capture (sequester) the equivalent of 25 % of human caused emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that up to 15 % more could be sequestered by forests with moderate efforts.

The “Carbone boréal” project

“Carbone boréal” is both a greenhouse gas offset program, through tree planting, and a research project led by researchers at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (Qc, Canada). Any organization or individual can participate in this innovative project. Each and every contributor helps to finance tree planting to offset the greenhouse gases emitted by their organization, family, activities, etc.

The boreal forest in Québec includes natural open woodlands that do not self-regenerate. The project aims at establishing research forests within these open woodlands, in collaboration with Québec’s Ministry of Natural Resources, while respecting forest ecosystems and boreal biodiversity.

The advantages of investing in “Carbone boréal” research plantations

  • Your participation leads to concrete carbon offset.
  • You gain reliable and verified carbon credits, at a competitive cost (CAN$28 / ton eq. CO2 or CAN$4 / tree) and fully tax refundable (in Canada).
  • You help to establish experimental plantations in the boreal forest, which will be used as long-term university research plots for carbon sequestration related topics.
  • You participate in a community-level project.

Other project characteristics

  • The “Carbone boréal” plantation network is fully protected from commercial harvesting.
  • In order to maximize carbon stock permanence, the experimental blocks will be spatially distributed to decrease the risk of losses by natural disturbances (wildfires, insects, etc.), and a supplemental plantation network will be used as backup.
  • Each experimental block that includes the trees associated with individual contributors will be geo-referenced and registered in the “Carbone boréal” documentation, available online at http://carboneboreal.uqac.ca/carboneboreal.
  • The plantations will be verified in compliance with ISO 14064-3 standard by the Bureau de normalisation du Québec, an independent and recognized third party.
  • The entire project will be registered in the GHG CleanProjects™ Registry of the Canadian Standards Association.