The Code was developed to ensure UK ‘carbon forestry’ projects, which companies invest in to offset their own carbon emissions and help tackle climate change, do achieve the benefits they claim.
To date the FC says the programme has registered 133 projects covering 14,200ha and between them calculated to have the capacity to remove 5 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
A total of 42 of the projects have been audited and independently validated.
Another scheme has also been launched to enable groups of woodland projects to go for validation jointly, making the process more cost effective.
The WCC also recently launched on the Markit Environmental Registry which, says the FC, enhances accountability and transparency.
"The Code continues to offer credible assurance to investors that the woodlands they invest in will deliver the carbon dioxide emissions abatement ascribed to them," said Pat Snowdon, head of the FC’s economics and climate change unit.
