US forestry company agrees sale of IFM credits at $29/tCO2e

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – A US forestry company has agreed its first deal in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) for a sale of carbon credits from an improved forest management (IFM) project in the state of Maine.

Weyerhaeuser Company said the agreed sale of almost 32,000 credits at $29 a tonne carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) covers all the offsets issued by US registry ACR for the first year of the company's Kibby Skinner IFM project.

Weyerhaeuser said Wednesday it will immediately retire the credits on behalf of the unnamed buyer.

The 50,000-acre (20,200-hectare) Kibby Skinner project was listed in the ACR in September under the project ID ACR721.

It is expected to generate credits equivalent to 475,000 tCO2e over its lifetime. 

Carbon Direct is providing advisory and marketing services and evaluates Weyerhaeuser projects against its Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal standard.

"We have been intentional in designing our projects to make certain all credits are of the highest integrity," said Russell Hagen, senior vice president and chief development officer for Weyerhaeuser, in a statement.

"All projects we are developing follow three key principles: they must represent real, measurable changes to our business operations to capture additional carbon, deliver long-term climate benefits and be based on a transparent methodology," he said.

The company, one of the world's largest private owners of timberlands, said it is currently developing several IFM projects on select areas within its 11-million-acre land base in the US, including two in the south of the country anticipated to be approved in 2024.