Proposed changes to the GHG Protocol could let companies count climate-driven forest growth on land they manage as emission reductions, even when they harvest or burn timber. Two competing approaches were debated: activity-based accounting (ABA), which ties emissions and removals to specific company actions, and managed land proxy plus (MLP+), which allocates a share of regional or managed-land growth to companies. Independent experts resigned amid concerns about scientific integrity and industry influence, and an ISO alignment has raised additional transparency worries. The outcome could affect voluntary corporate claims and future regulation in places such as California and the EU.
Did Timber Companies Help Write Rules Letting Them Count Tree Harvesting As Carbon Gains?
Did the Forestry Industry Just Get to Write Its Own Emissions Rules?
Is it always better for the climate to leave a tree standing rather than cut it down? Most people would instinctively say yes: living trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and rising atmospheric CO2 and warmer temperatures are changing forest growth and carbon flows. A new debate, however, has erupted over how companies are allowed to count forest carbon in corporate greenhouse-gas inventories—and whether industry actors helped shape rules that could let them claim climate benefits while continuing to harvest and burn wood.
Two Accounting Approaches, Very Different Outcomes
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), the corporate standard used by the vast majority of large companies to report emissions, recently considered two competing methods for reporting emissions and removals tied to forests.
Activity-Based Accounting (ABA)
ABA ties reported emissions and removals directly to a company’s specific activities on particular parcels of land: planting, harvesting, restoration, or conversion. It attempts to reflect the physical cause-and-effect relationship between a firm’s actions and the carbon outcomes on the ground.
Managed Land Proxy Plus (MLP+)
MLP+ would allow companies to count a share of the net carbon uptake occurring across land they own or manage—even if that uptake is mainly driven by climate factors (higher CO2 and longer growing seasons) and not by the company’s management actions. Companies would separately report direct impacts of management but would be permitted to include region- or portfolio-level forest growth as corporate removals.
Why Scientists and Some Board Members Object
Critics argue MLP+ can produce perverse incentives and double-count removals that are already reflected in global carbon budgets. For example, one illustration used by critics compares Poland’s national figures: if Polish forests absorb about 60 megatons of CO2 annually while the country harvests roughly 20 million square meters of roundwood, an MLP-style allocation could imply each square meter of harvested wood ‘‘removes’’ roughly three tons of CO2—an outcome several experts call physically incoherent.
"This is physically backwards and incoherent," said Tim Searchinger, a Princeton researcher who resigned from roles tied to the Protocol in protest.
Independent experts have warned that MLP+ risks letting firms claim removals for climate-driven forest growth while they continue to cut and burn trees, effectively masking the loss of long-lived carbon sinks. A 2022 pilot using an earlier MLP variant reportedly produced negative emissions for nearly every participating forestry company—an incentive structure many scientists call misleading.
Governance And Influence Concerns
The procedural dispute has focused not only on methods but on process. Two independent forest-carbon experts on the Protocol’s Independent Standards Board—Danny Cullenward and Tim Searchinger—resigned this year, citing concerns that industry actors had outsized influence over the working group that drafted the methods. Internal complaints, missing explanatory memos, and a contested subgroup process raised alarm among some board members that the working group’s composition and communications biased the outcome.
Compounding transparency concerns, the Protocol announced a strategic alignment with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which uses committee processes that can allow anonymous participation—raising the prospect that decisions could be made with less public visibility than under the Protocol’s current rules.
Why It Matters
GHG Protocol standards are widely used voluntarily and are increasingly referenced in regulation in jurisdictions such as California and the European Union. If permissive forest-accounting approaches such as MLP+ are adopted, they could be integrated into mandatory reporting rules and potentially into corporate net-zero claims—magnifying the effects of any methodological flaws.
At stake is whether accounting will reflect physical carbon outcomes and scientific best practice, or whether it will create loopholes that let companies claim climate benefits without demonstrable emissions reductions. Environmentalists and scientists face a difficult choice: exclude industry to protect scientific integrity, or keep it engaged to secure cooperation and prevent backsliding. The decision will shape how forests are valued in corporate climate accounting for years to come.
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