FAQ

Carbone boréal is both a greenhouse gas (GHG) offset program, which plants trees, and a research infrastructure at UQAC.

Carbone boréal allows organizations and individuals to offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their businesses, organizations, activities, family life, etc. The plantations also serve as university research facilities, available to the scientific community.

Carbone boréal was set up in 2008 and officially became a research infrastructure at UQAC in the spring of 2018, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the project. The research infrastructure is under the supervision of a full professor and an executive committee. A scientific committee is also mandated to discuss scientific issues.

Carbone boréal’s plantations are made available to any researcher, inside and outside UQAC, who wish to use the facilities and associated resources to carry out research. In addition to being able to offset GHG emissions, governments, businesses and the general public all benefit from the work carried out on the plantation network since they advance knowledge on climate change (see the FAQ “What is Carbone boréal’s research about?).

The plantations are mainly located in the boreal forest north of Lac-St-Jean but also on unsuitable agricultural lands.

The plantations of the forestry network of Carbone boréal are established on lands of the public domain considered as non-forests by the forest inventories of the Ministry of Forests Wildlife and Parks of Quebec called dry open woodlands (OW). These OW are mainly located in the spruce-moss domain of the boreal forest, approximately between the 49^th and 52^nd parallels. The black spruce (Picea mariana) is the dominant tree species, representing more than 75% of the forest cover in the spruce-moss forest domain.

Open woodlands result from regeneration accidents (successive fires or insect epidemics), during which closed stands of the spruce-moss forest are converted to open stands (percentage of recovery is less than 25 %). Over the past 50 years, a gradual increase in the surface of the boreal forest covered by OWs has been observed. Approximately 7% of the spruce-moss domain, about 1.7 M ha, is made up of OWs, of which almost 10% is located less than 5 km from the existing road network.

For the agricultural component, the plantations are located on uncultivated lands or areas inappropriate for agriculture. This includes slides, rocky grounds and notches, steep slopes, gravel pits, etc. The land is selected in collaboration with the Quebec’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The plantations are currently established in the Lac-St-Jean region, but may eventually be established in other regions if necessary.

The amount of CO₂ compensated is based on the sequestration of a black spruce in the boreal forest. The study by Gaboury et al (2009) has shown that a black spruce from Carbone boréal’s plantations will capture 140 kg (0.14 t) of CO₂ eq. over a period of 70 years. This value is used to determine the number of trees to be planted to offset the GHG emissions calculated by Carbone boréal’s calculator, which uses the best scientific data (emission factors) available.

Carbon offsets aim to completely remove from the atmosphere the equivalent of GHG that have been emitted by a given activity (See the FAQ “What is a carbon footprint?”). This therefore requires a rigorous accounting of emissions in order to precisely determine the level of compensation necessary to reach a zero-emission balance sheet.

The Carbone boréal compensation level is based on a study conducted by UQAC’s researchers (Gaboury et al., 2009). This study calculated the net carbon sequestration balance between an unmanaged natural OW and a landscaped and afforested OW with black spruce. The results demonstrated a carbon sequestration potential of 77 t C ha^-1 70 years after afforestation, i.e. a net sequestration rate of 1.1 t C ha^-1 year^-1 (resulting from the absorption of 4 t CO₂ eq. ha^-1 year^-1). For a single black spruce, this represents a sequestration of 140 kg of CO₂ eq over a period of 70 years.

A life cycle analysis (LCA) was also carried out in this study in order to assess the GHG emissions related to afforestation of OW. This LCA has demonstrated that all operations related to OW afforestation (nearly 40 processes, from the production of seeds and plants to road construction to the monitoring of plantations) represent less than 0.5% of the net C balance after 70 years.

Examples: since it is estimated that a black spruce in the boreal forest sequesters an average of 140 kg of CO₂ over the first 70 years of its life, it follows that a single black spruce can offset the emissions of a compact car travelling 736 km (0.19 kg CO₂ emitted per km), corresponding to a Saguenay-Drummondville return trip; one hectare of a mature black spruce plantation (2,000 trees) can sequester the annual consumption (20,000 km) of more than 70 compact cars.

Yes, by offsetting emissions via the website you make a donation that contributes to the funding of research carried out by the Carbone boréal team. As a consequence, a receipt will be issued to you at the end of the year.

All the money collected on Carbone boréal’s website is in the form of a donation and transits through the UQAC Development Fund. People and organizations that offset their GHG emissions with Carbone boréal will therefore receive a charitable donation receipt, tax deductible, for any cumulative compensation of more than 20 CAD per year. Receipts are sent automatically by mail in February of the following year.

In the agricultural component, compensation for one ton of CO₂ eq. costs 35 CAD (5 CAD / tree) instead of 28 CAD (4 CAD / tree) in the forestry component. The difference is paid in royalties to farmers / land owners where the plantations are located. The fraction collected by Carbone boréal (excluding the amount serving as royalty) can give access to a charitable donation receipt.

A register is kept, updated and published monthly on the Carbone boréal website. Each contribution is assigned a unique number in the register.

In order to ensure the follow-up and to avoid double counting, each new compensation is recorded in the Carbone boréal register. This register is updated every month and publicly available on the website, under the “Register and cards” tab. Each contribution is assigned a unique number in the register. The names of donator / organizations, etc. as well as the georeferenced system / plantation in which the allocated trees for CO₂ sequestration is located are listed. Trees are allocated only once and when all trees of a plantation have been allocated, we move on to the next plantation.

Thereafter, an offset certificate is sent electronically to the person or organization who compensated. This certificate is an official proof that the compensation has been recorded and that the trees have been allocated. The name of the contributor, the number of tons of CO₂ compensated, the number of planted trees and a description of the activity which motivates the compensation are indicated. The certificate also includes a unique number linked to the Carbone boréal register.

Yes, Carbone boréal’s plantations and sequestration claims are validated by an independent third party (the Bureau de normalization du Québec (BNQ)) according to ISO 14064-2 and 3 standards. The trees allocated for your compensation exist and sequester the amount of CO₂ guaranteed by Carbone boréal.

Any credible compensation organization must be verified by an independent third party. The compensation offered by Carbone boréal therefore includes a rigorous and transparent verification protocol. The net carbon sequestration quantification and monitoring protocol conforms to the international standard ISO 14064-2 and has been validated by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The plantations are then verified according to ISO 14064-3 by the Bureau de normalization du Québec (BNQ), an independent and accredited third party. Carbone boréal was audited twice, in 2012 and 2018. Reports of past verifications can be viewed at any time on the Carbone boréal website. Verification is part of normal management procedures and must be carried out at regular intervals to cover the new installations.

Based on the verification procedures, the BNQ has stated that Carbone boréal’s GHG sequestration declaration is fair and that the principles of accuracy, relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency and prudence have been respected in agreement with the ISO 14064 norm. This means that people who contribute to Carbone boréal are assured that the best guidelines, standards and practices for carbon sequestration have been followed and that the precautions taken to ensuring the additionality and permanence of GHGs offsets are satisfactory.

Carbone boréal’s plantations meet the criteria of additionality because the biological sequestration of the CO₂ in the plantations is greater than what would have happened in the normal course of business (that is, with no plantation). In addition, there is no legislative requirement that reforestation be carried out in the areas where our plantations are established.

Carbone boréal is a research infrastructure of the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi. As such, each of Carbone boréal’s plantations is an opportunity to study carbon sequestration and additionality.

In order to meet the additionality criterion, one must ensure that the biological sequestration of CO₂ resulting from the plantation (through the growth of trees) is additional to the business-as-usual scenario, which is commonly referred to as the “baseline scenario”. For the additionality principle to be met, two conditions are necessary: ​​1) the “afforestation scenario”, that is to say with interventions aimed at increasing the capacity of carbon sinks, should not be mandatory following the current law; and 2) the carbon sequestration in the “afforestation scenario” must be greater than what would naturally occur without intervention.

For each Carbone boréal’s project included in forestry network, the baseline scenario is an open woodland of the boreal zone (see FAQ # 2). It has been scientifically demonstrated that there is not enough natural regeneration in these open woodlands to ensure a return to a closed stand. For the agricultural component of Carbone boréal, the reference scenario are areas unsuitable for agriculture (on steep slopes, slides, rock outcrops, etc.). These areas are also eligible for reforestation in an agricultural area according to the Quebec’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. No plan, directive, regulation or program requires sites from the forestry network and from the agricultural component to be afforested.

Carbone boréal is the first GHG offset project dedicated to supporting scientific research. The afforestation of open woodlands allows the biological sequestration of carbon to go beyond the normal course of business (see FAQ # 3). Regular monitoring is carried out to verify the exact amount of carbon sequestered in the plantations. In addition, the funds collected from the C offsets make the project sustainable and ensure additional financial support.

The additionality of Carbone boréal’s projects was also assessed using a test adapted from the CDM guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC 2004) to which ISO 14064-2 refers (figure 4 of the project document, see publication section).

In addition to having buffer plantations (in the event of loss by fire for example), the plantations of the forestry network hold the Experimental Forest status (renewable every 30 years) and a contract (also renewable every 30 years and transferable in the event of a sale) binds the owners of agricultural lands where plantations are located.

Several measures are taken to limit the risk of losses of carbon sequestered by plantations and thus ensure permanence.

The permanence of Carbone boréal’s plantations is guaranteed in four different ways:

• Legal permanence
• Dynamic permanence
• Institutional permanence
• Financial permanence

Legal permanence

First, all Carbone boréal’s plantations benefit from the Experimental Forest status granted by the Forest Research Department (DRF) of the MFFP. This status is granted to a portion of public territory for research and experimentation purposes exclusively. It is a privileged site for research activities since the experimental set-ups enjoy legal protection. The only forest management activities authorized therein are related to research activities approved by Carbone boréal. The status is granted for a period of 30 years, renewable upon expiration.

Dynamic permanence

Dynamic permanence concerns the permanence of plantation’s carbon stocks, through the establishment of buffer zones. A number of trees corresponding to 30% of all the trees planted in the Carbone boréal plantations is allocated to a reserve, which is not used for compensation. This reserve is used only in the event that the guaranteed compensation rate (140 kg of CO₂ per tree after 70 years) is not reached due to mortality or any other cause (wildfires, insects, diseases, windfall, grazing, etc.). This rigorous, transparent, validated and verified methodology therefore guaranties each contributor to Carbone boréal that “real” trees actually sequester the equivalent of the GHG emissions they want to offset. For agricultural plantation, the buffer is 20%, due to the reduced risk of reversion.

In addition, the susceptibility of the plantations to natural disturbances (wildfires, insects, diseases, etc.) is reduced by a spatial distribution of the plantations and the use of various tree species. The plantations are distributed among various separate experimental sites far from each other, reducing the risk of losses through natural disturbances.

Institutional permanence

As highlighted in FAQ # 1, Carbone boréal is an infrastructure of the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC), founded in 1969 and enjoying the sustainability provided by this kind of institution. The existence of Carbone boréal is therefore not subject to the vagaries of the economic situation and to personal decisions as this infrastructure is managed collegially and over the long term by the university.

Financial permanence

Carbone boréal’s financial permanence stems from the fact that part of the funds (20%) is capitalized in the UQAC Development Funds. This money earns annual interests which are either allocated or capitalized according to the annual decision of the management committee.

These four types of permanence, which few organizations or individuals can assume in such a complete and lasting manner, attests to the quality of the service offered by Carbone boréal and aims to reassure contributors regarding the efficiency and the permanence of their compensation.

The trees in the plantations capture the CO₂ equivalent to your offset from the day of plantation to their maturity. From this day onwards, there is a balance between carbon losses due to the decomposition of old trees and carbon gains due to natural regeneration (growth of new trees), ensuring the maintenance of the sequestered carbon.

The Carbone boréal’s plantations are established on open woodlands (OW), considered as non-forested areas. The afforestation of these territories therefore makes it possible to establish a new forest and create a new carbon sink. A black spruce in Quebec reaches its maturity at 45 to 70 years-old depending on site quality. The mature spruce can then usually live 175 to 200 years, up to a maximum of 250 years. Planting in OW therefore guarantees that the carbon will be sequestered for a long period of time. Thereafter, a part of the carbon accumulated in the tree biomass returns to the atmosphere due to the decomposition of dead trees. Another part of the carbon is transferred to the forest soil during decomposition. In addition, the regeneration that takes place in the understory, i.e. layering in black spruce, results in the development of new trees that will grow and sequester carbon when dead trees give them room to grow. In fact, there is generally a balance between carbon loss and sequestration in a mature forest. It has even been shown that some old growth forests continue to have a positive carbon sequestration balance.

In addition, it is possible to secure the sequestration carried out by the plantations in different ways. Using wood as a substitute for other carbon intensive materials like concrete or steel for structure in buildings is a great way to decrease their carbon footprint as wood stores the carbon that has been sequestered by trees in the long term. The use of biomass, as a fuel for combustion boilers for example, is another way to value the plantations. These issues related to the efficiency and the permanence of carbon sequestration are in the scope of Carbone boréal’s research questions. In any case, trees allocated to carbon offsets cannot be removed without replacement of the equivalent carbon stock from the buffer.

Your compensation is entirely intended to Carbone boréal’s activities funding: research carried out by researchers and students, spending related to verification, monitoring of plantations and others. If you compensate with the agricultural component, a rebate of 7 CAD / ton of CO₂ offset (1 CAD / tree) is given to the landowner.

Any offset made through the Carbone boréal program becomes at the same time a contribution to research activities dealing with carbon sequestration in forests by the UQAC team. The money collected on the website, in the form of a donation, transits through the UQAC Development Fund and is therefore made available to researchers associated with Carbone boréal as follows: 20% is capitalized in the Fonds de recherche de Carbone boréal at the UQAC Development Fund. This money earns annual interests, which can be allocated or capitalized according to the annual decision of the management committee. About 5% is used for the administration of the Carbone boréal program including verifications and website costs, and the rest (75%) supports the needs of research projects conducted by the team. This money is used to pay scholarships for graduate students, specialized equipment, research professionals and costs directly related to research and the dissemination of research results.

“Climate preventive™” makes it possible to double-offset your emissions in an intergenerational perspective where you help to reduce past and present emissions in order to guarantee a better future for the next generations.

Another beneficial aspect of climate change mitigation by planting trees is that it goes beyond simply offsetting the emissions from our activities. In other words, a plantation can also be set up with the aim of capturing past emissions. With this in mind, the Carbone boréal offset program invites each contributor to be ” Climate preventive™”, that is to say to offset twice the greenhouse gas emissions of the targeted activity. The ” Climate preventive™”, developed by the UQAC Eco-Advising Chair at the 11^th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2005, aims to meet one of the main founding principles of sustainable development, i.e. intra- and inter-generational equity. Analysis of the latest IPCC reports shows that even with very significant efforts to reduce GHG emissions on a global scale, non-offset emissions risk doubling the pre-industrial concentration by the middle of the present century. Being “Climate preventive™” thus can delay reaching this level and give the most vulnerable people of today and future generations the flexibility to adapt to climate change, in terms of knowledge, infrastructure and technology. It is also an application of both the principle of responsibility and the principle of precaution, two principles advocated by the Quebec Sustainable Development Act and by the Declaration of the Rio Summit in 1992.

The plantations can be used as experimental devices to answer various types of research questions, mainly related to climate change mitigation, via forest carbon sequestration.

The Carbone boréal’s plantations are all part of a network of experimental devices available to UQAC researchers and students as well as to government researchers and collaborators from other universities. The research, funded by the various contributors to Carbone boréal, mainly focuses on themes related to carbon sequestration by plantations and adaptation of the boreal forest to climate change. Here is an example of a Carbone boréal device and research questions:

• What is the impact of the density of mature trees already present at the moment of plantation (those that constitute the “reference scenario”) on the growth and survival of the regeneration (pre-established, planted, or natural seedings), on the growth of carbon stocks, soil fertility, etc.?
• To what extent the type of planted trees influences wood yield of reforested sites, the growth of carbon stocks, etc.? Carbone boréal’s plantations allow testing the effectiveness of different species of native trees, including black spruce, white spruce, jack pine and tamarack.
• How significant is the regeneration from natural seedings compared to that of planted trees, in terms of yield, survival, spatial distribution, growth of carbon stocks, etc.?
• How does fertilization with residual materials from the forest industry (or other) impact carbon sequestration?

Other projects are related to:

• Economic potential of the forest carbon market;
• Environmental and climate change education;
• Social and ethical issues of compensation by planting trees.

The results obtained by the Carbone boréal research team, which are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, are presented on the Carbone boréal website.

If you have offset your GHG emissions with us, you’re welcome to share the news. For companies or organizations wishing to use our logo (registered trademark) for promotional material, you must contact us beforehand and an agreement, free of charge, will be established.

As an individual, we encourage you to talk about your offsets in your entourage and via social media. In addition, the offset certificate sent to you is the proof of your contribution, and you are free to use it as you wish, provided you don’t modify it.

As a business, if you want to promote your engagement with Carbone boréal on any platform, your website for example, or organize a media event, it is then necessary to sign a visibility exchange agreement with UQAC beforehand. This agreement is free of charge and is simply intended to regulate the use of the Carbone boréal name and logo, which are registered trademarks at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Among other things, this will allow you to use our logo. Contact us if you would like to have more information.

Carbone boréal was designed by the team of the Chair in Eco-Consulting, a UQAC research unit specializing in sustainable development. Carbone boréal meets the following SDG targets: 4.4,4.5, 4.7,6.6, 9.5, 13.1,13.2,13.3, 15.1 and 15.2 to which we can add targets 2.3 and 2.4 for the agricultural component.

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an ambitious 2030 Agenda to implement sustainable development in all countries. This program has 17 Goals with 169 targets and more than 240 indicators (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/). Although Carbone boréal was created well before this initiative, it meets 12 of the targets from 7 SDGs as can be seen in the table below. This is not surprising because Carbone boréal was designed by the team of the Chair in Eco-Consulting, a UQAC research unit specializing in the implementation of sustainable development which has also produced tools for systemic sustainability analysis approved by the United Nations (http://ecoconseil.uqac.ca).