Considering getting started in plantation forestry carbon? Here’s a few tips to help you scope whether this project type is right for you.
1. Do you have plantation forestry expertise, or can you access support?
The CFF exists to make it as easy as possible for farming businesses to tap into the carbon farming opportunity and accelerate towards carbon neutrality. We do this by acting as a remote support team that sticks to process, compliance, and technical advice. Essentially, our role is laser focused on helping landholders plan and execute an optimised and compliant carbon project – we help tick all the boxes needed to generate carbon credits.
So, what does that mean for a plantation forestry carbon project? Well, to take the kind of do-it-yourself approach that we support, our customers ought to have the commercial forestry side of things (on-ground implementation and management) sorted in-house or via a third party. For example, a potential customer may already run a forestry business and want to tap into the carbon opportunity or be leveraging support from their local Timber Hub to upskill and get started.
The key takeaway here? It pays to do your homework, seek advice and adequately prepare for both the commercial and practical aspects of plantation management, and work with us to harness your carbon opportunity.
2. Will your plantation objectives sequester additional carbon?
If you’ve got the plantation side of things down, it’s important to ensure that your plans fit the mold for carbon farming too. You can check to see if your proposal and the current and historical use of your land meet eligibility criteria under one of the four schedules of the ACCU Scheme’s Plantation Forestry Method. If you find the Method a little unwieldy, we’ve made a handy tabular summary of the rules in our Plantation Forestry Carbon Projects 101 blog. And there’s more detail in our Plantation Forestry Guide and webinar.
3. Is the yield at your site likely to support a feasible project?
Does it look like you might tick the boxes to run a carbon project under one of the method schedules? Get in touch with us, and we can sense-check this for you. Then, using your particular planned species, rotation and plantation management regime as assumptions, we model indicative carbon yield at your site to help you assess if a plantation carbon project can stack up financially.
If yields are promising, and your project has sufficient scale to warrant further interrogation, we suggest ordering a feasibility presentation or report. For more information, check out our blog on the Plantation Forestry Feasibility Process.
4. Is the project otherwise viable?
Our feasibility reports pull together a detailed financial project breakdown, with essential information to help landholders and key stakeholders confirm eligibility, assess their opportunity, mitigate risk, enhance returns, and better understand their business case. You can read more about feasibility services and our other services to set up and provide ongoing support to projects here. Remember, our specialty is carbon, and not wood products, so you’ll want to marry together the numbers on the commercial plantation side, with costs and profits from carbon farming to get the full picture.
5. Can you commit to project permanence?
One last thing and it’s a pretty big one. Committing to a carbon project means safely and compliantly managing your plantation for the duration of your planned permanence period – either 25 or 100 years. So, it’s essential that you can confidently establish and maintain a plantation project which aligns with both your long-term commercial and on-farm objectives. The CFF is here to help – our feasibility services help you explore your permanence obligations and if you elect to set up your project with us, we’ll also work with you to develop an air-tight permanence plan to outline your long-haul risk mitigation strategies.
Ready to find out more?
Explore our range of educational resources in our Carbon Farming Education Hub where we frequently publish educational articles, webinars, and guidebooks.
When you’re ready to explore the feasibility of undertaking a carbon project on your property, email us at hello@carbonfarming.org.au or give us a bell at (08) 6835 1140 to be connected with one of our project facilitators.
