Over 30,000 acres of land in the Lower Mississippi Valley have been converted back to bottomland hardwood forests under the nation’s first forest carbon offset project to earn registration with the widely respected Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). TerraCarbon announced its support in the registration and monitoring of the project, and Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) announced its verification of the project.

 

The project, estimated to remove more than 6 million tons of carbon dioxide over its 60-year term, was funded by Dynegy, Inc. and involved planting trees on state and federally protected lands in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma. TerraCarbon prepared the project design documentation for registration and implemented the first monitoring event; SCS validated the project design and verified that the project has removed more than 521,144 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since its inception. Together, SCS and TerraCarbon provide companies with support services to quantify and certify the climate benefits of offset projects, helping justify further investments in activities that fight climate change, such as reforestation.