Many organizations are taking steps to better understand, manage, and track their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and several internationally acclaimed resources are available to specifically assist organizations with the essential step of preparing a GHG inventory. The important role for forests in GHG emissions management is widely recognized, but there are fewer resources to help organizations account for forest-related GHG emissions and removals in their GHG emission inventories. This course fills this need by providing comprehensive and detailed guidance on developing forest GHG inventories, which will help your organization:

• Track changes in forest GHG emissions and removals over time
• Identify opportunities to increase carbon sequestration
• Identify other opportunities to reduce forest-related GHG emissions
• Participate in GHG reporting programs
• Assess liabilities of, and opportunities for, participating in future GHG policies

There are a wide variety of GHG programs that include a role for forests, and thus provide some guidance on forest GHG accounting. These include:

• National GHG inventories under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Guidelines for national GHG inventories by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forest projects
• CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project)
• Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)
• The Climate Registry (TCR)
• Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
• U.S. DOE/EIA 1605(b) program
• International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) S2
• California Climate Action Registry (CCAR)

The forest-related guidance provided in these programs ranges in terms of purpose, scope, and specificity. This course draws on all of these resources and provides comprehensive and flexible guidance specifically on how to prepare an organizational GHG inventory covering forest GHG emissions and removals. To date, there are no international consensus methods on this topic.

To remain consistent with widely approved international standards, the course draws on the terminology and structure of WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.