Level-Setting Resources

Below are resources selected by the Summit Steering Committee and Working Groups as being most important in preparing for the Summit. Please take the time to watch or read as many of these as possible!

Overview of the split of public versus private forestland in the United States, the percentage of working forests that are harvested annually, and the breakdown of where the harvested timber goes as final products.

ANIMATION: 3 MINUTES

This presentation focuses on alternative pathways to sourcing climate smarter forestry that utilize disclosure and transparency for direct sourcing of wood products. Three different approaches to tracking back to origin forest are presented while outlining the different performance requirements around wood harvesting and landowner diversity that each can provide. The presentation ends with describing what's needed to move forward: roadmaps of supply chain engagement for creating specifications around these new approaches, and an understanding of how our procurement teams can be restructured.

VIDEO: 21 MINUTES

Explanation of how typical softwood industry supply chains are structured and why this complexity makes it difficult to trace end products, including mass timber, back to the forest(s) of origin. Also, lays out the position that such traceability isn't essential because working forests in N. America, both certified and uncertified, are sustainably managed.

VIDEO: 14 MINUTES

Outlines the goals and key features of ecological forest management (which focuses on managing ecosystems for multiple benefits including carbon storage, resilience, and wholeness or integrity) and how it differs from production forestry (which focuses on maximizing wood production and return on investment). Briefly discusses SFI and FSC certification. Makes the case that we have so altered forests that to leave them alone is irrational; instead, we should manage and restore them responsibly. Jerry Franklin is a world-renowned forest ecologist who has been called “the father of new forestry.” He is a leading authority on sustainable forest management and the maintenance of healthy forest ecosystems and was responsible for integrating ecological and economic values into harvest strategies. He has recently written the co-authoritative book on Ecological Forest Management (Ecological Forest Management by Debora L. Johnson, Jerry F. Franklin, and K. Norman Johnson) available Waveland Press

VIDEO: 19 MINUTES

Why the conservation of primary forests, i.e. forests that have not been previously logged, and proforestation of some secondary forest -- i.e. letting forests that are semi-mature and have been previously logged grow back -- are critical for climate and biodiversity. The relative impacts of logging on emissions of forest carbon. A proposal for a national Forest Carbon Reserve and other suggested solutions.

VIDEO: 23 MIN

This presentation discusses the global climate importance of protecting primary forests in the Canadian boreal and challenges assertions around the sustainability of current logging practices in Canada. The Canadian boreal is one of the most carbon-dense biomes on the planet, and to meet international climate targets, carbon-rich primary forest areas free of industrial development need to remain unlogged.

VIDEO: 14 MINUTES

Why reforestation is a critical natural climate solution. Several strategies and tools in the reforestation toolbox, including natural regeneration (proforestation) and tree planting (afforestation). Why and when active management is sometimes needed 1) to ensure that reforestation is successful, ecologically appropriate, and resilient; and 2) to mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfire and to kickstart forest recovery in the wake of extreme fire events. "Must-haves" in order to realize the reforestation opportunity, as well as current public policy initiatives.

VIDEO: 16 MINUTES

Why transforming how we conserve and manage forests is an essential climate solution, equivalent in scope and impact to how we transform our energy and transportation sectors. Explains that forest-based emissions are not contemplated to be under any capped systems, and therefore in order to address the root causes of these emissions, other tools to reduce and reverse forest loss and degradation are needed. Forest Carbon offsets are one key tool that can be an effective business-to-business based approach, but thet must be rigorous and long-term. Discusses other, more forest sector-based tools and approaches that must be deployed, from vastly increasing the use of permanent conservation easements on managed forest, to instituting procurement and contracting standards that require forest products from conserved, well-managed forests, to state-backed rating systems for products that come from forests with beneficial climate-based management.

VIDEO: 23:45 MINUTES

Featured presentation from Wood Carbon Seminars: High-level overview of how life cycle assessment (LCA) works. Explanation of the current methodology whereby LCA and environmental product declarations (EPDs) handle biogenic (produced by living organisms) carbon.

VIDEO: 17 MINUTES

Featured presentation from Wood Carbon Seminars: Tackles the question "is wood carbon neutral" by exploring four possible approaches to conducting LCAs for wood products where system boundaries and key assumptions vary:

1) Traditional LCA approach which assumes neutrality for biogenic carbon and doesn't account for deforestation or forest degradation that results in net losses of forest carbon

2) Approach where carbon balance is accounted by the growth of new trees after trees are harvested

3) Supply area approach that can account for new losses of forest carbon in the forest landscape and is aligned with procurement

4) "foregone sequestration" -- a counterfactual where trees are allowed to grow instead of being logged

VIDEO: 18 MINUTES

Current calculations of the embodied carbon of wood rest on LCAs that rest in turn on the assumption that managed forests are always carbon neutral. This presentation lays out why it's important to add a "forest carbon-stock change" factor to the embodied carbon assessment of wood, and suggests a methodology for how this can be done. Also draws an important distinction between climate-smart forestry and carbon-friendly forestry.

VIDEO: 22 MINUTES