Towards a Carbon Accounting Framework for Assessing the Benefits of Biogenic Wood Carbon to Net Zero Carbon Targets

Carbon stored in harvested wood products (HWPs) can play an important role in climate change mitigation and needs to be accounted for accurately and consistently. This study reviewed the features of previous HWP carbon accounting frameworks and discussed potential improvements for a more complete assessment of all HWP contributions to net zero carbon targets at subnational levels. The basic features include the components, the methods, the approaches, and the modeling principles. A key recommendation is to expand previous HWP C accounting framework components to include other climate change mitigation benefits such as local or regional substitution effects (i.e., material replacement, fossil fuel displacement effects, energy efficiency gains, recycling effects, and cascading use impacts) of all produced and consumed HWPs. Another area for improvement is the need for subnational unit-specific activity data and conversion factors. Adopting variants of the domestic origin-stock change approach will also help account for relevant production and consumption activities within the subnational unit. These recommendations will enhance the accuracy and/or precision of HWP accounting frameworks at the subnational level and help capture all potential benefits of HWPs as a carbon sink for climate change mitigation and a valuable contributor to subnational net zero carbon targets.

Automated summary

This study reviewed the features of previous HWP carbon accounting frameworks and provided recommendations for improvements to accurately assess the contributions of harvested wood products to net zero carbon targets. Recommendations include expanding the accounting framework to include other climate change mitigation benefits and providing subnational unit-specific activity data and conversion factors. These improvements will enhance the accuracy of HWP accounting frameworks and capture the potential benefits of HWPs as a carbon sink.