Abstract

Green Resources AS, a plantation, carbon offset, forest products, and renewable energy company with operations in Eastern Africa, calculated carbon footprints for 2008 and 2009. In both years, the footprint was dominated by removals of CO₂ from the atmosphere attributable to afforestation. These removals were more than 17 times the emissions from the company’s value chain. The largest difference between the 2008 and 2009 footprints was due to loss of forest carbon caused by fire. Otherwise, the most important changes in the footprint were related to plantation expansion and growth, and increased output of products in 2009, which caused increases in several types of emissions. The remaining elements of the footprint (manufacturing, forestry operations, transport, and upstream emissions related to non-fibrous inputs, fuels, and electricity) were approximately equal. The use of the charcoal manufactured by the company avoided coal-related emissions equal to approximately one-quarter of the company’s value chain emissions.

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