Valuing Forests & Scaling Markets: Reflections from Climate Week NYC

Russell Hagen, senior vice president and chief development officer at Weyerhaeuser, responds to a question during a panel discussion at the World Climate Foundation's Biodiversity Summit at Climate Week NYC on Sept. 26.

Several members of our Weyerhaeuser team recently returned from Climate Week NYC. The annual gathering, held this year from Sept. 22 to 29, brings together business and sustainability leaders from across the public and private sectors to discuss the ongoing global response to climate change. The week of events coincides with the United Nations General Assembly and has become one of the highest-profile and most important venues for shaping international conversations around the climate crisis.

Building on our experience last year, our team participated in a number of panel discussions covering a range of topics related to nature-based climate solutions and markets. We co-hosted two of those panels with organizations that have become increasingly important to our work over the past year - one each with ACR, the registry for our carbon projects, and Carbon Direct, our marketing and science advisory partner. Beyond speaking engagements, team members attended other sessions, meetings and networking events in support of our business development and sustainability objectives. And leading up to Climate Week NYC we made two important announcements, starting with the launch of a multi-year collaboration with The Nature Conservancy to further the scientific understanding of how forests and forest products contribute to climate mitigation. We then published our Greenhouse Gas Inventory Principles, demonstrating our science-based approach to accounting for the carbon impact of forests and forest products.

"In launching our Natural Climate Solutions business a few years ago, we recognized Weyerhaeuser could take a leading role in increasing awareness of working forests and lands as scalable climate solutions," says Alicia Robbins, vice president of Portfolio Analytics and Business Development. "Climate Week NYC provides a unique forum for meaningful engagement with stakeholders across our carbon platform and is becoming an annual highlight for our team as we grow our message and positive impact."

Below are some of the key themes and takeaways from the week.

The voluntary carbon market remains a critical tool for driving climate action

Despite the many stories about its challenges, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) remains an important mechanism for driving meaningful climate action. Wednesday, Sept. 25, was unofficially "VCM Day" at Climate Week NYC, and we were pleased to hear many speakers advocating for the VCM and its potential. We share this optimism and believe that the VCM can be improved and scaled by focusing on high-integrity projects and high-quality credits. Alicia discussed the importance of supply integrity to the VCM during the panel we co-hosted with Carbon Direct, "The Buyer-Supplier Partnership: Accelerating High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal." "When we thought about entering this space, we looked around and saw that, yes, there was an opportunity to deliver carbon credits from our existing footprint," she says. "But there was also an incredible responsibility to do it right." (We outlined our approach to developing forest carbon projects last year in our Carbon Credit Principles).

Land, experience and optionality are key to scaling nature-based markets

Related to the VCM discussion, our team also engaged in many conversations about how to scale markets around sustainably managed natural ecosystems. Russell Hagen, senior vice president and chief development officer, joined a panel at the World Climate Foundation's Biodiversity Summit, "Valuing Natural Capital: Creating Markets for Nature." He shared how Weyerhaeuser draws on lessons from our 124-year history of sustainable forest management to develop optionality - that is, the ability to identify all the different ways we could use our land (e.g., forest carbon projects, mitigation banking, etc.) in addition to harvesting - to attract investment and grow nature-based markets. "We think about our landscapes on a very broad scale, and we think about how we value them every day," Russell says. "We're starting to see investors come in and distribute additional value for things like biodiversity or carbon opportunities, and we think that is a really interesting platform that's being built because until we can stack these values and really understand the economic trade-off, it's going to be difficult to meet the demand that is out there."

Nature-based climate solutions such as forests are needed now more than ever

The theme of Climate Week NYC this year was "It's Time," and we heard many calls for more action on climate change. As several of our panelists noted, forests are one of the best tools we have right now for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Jason Gibson, director of Forest Carbon, expanded on that perspective during a panel co-hosted with the carbon registry ACR, "Growing Forest Resilience with Natural Climate Solutions" at IETA's North America Climate Summit. "We view forests as a really unique tool for helping climate mitigation," Jason says. "They grow vertically on a small footprint, and they offer so many other benefits like biodiversity, wildlife, clean water, clean air and recreation - but also all the different products we use in everyday life. So, there's just a lot of opportunity in the carbon space for how forests can be part of the solution."

We have an incredible opportunity to build on our century-long commitment to sustainability.

Sustainability has been a core value at Weyerhaeuser for generations. Still, new opportunities - many of them coming through our Natural Climate Solutions business - show that we can make an even greater impact through our leadership and unique position as the steward of millions of acres of North American timberlands.

"Participating in events like Climate Week NYC helps us build and strengthen relationships and elevate nature-based solutions in the global dialogue on climate," says Ara Erickson, vice president of corporate sustainability. "Forests and the products that come from them have enormous value as climate solutions, but their impact is often misunderstood or misrepresented - so it's critical for us to be present and engaged in these conversations. We look forward to continuing to lead and collaborate in the development of global frameworks, growth opportunities and collective climate action."

Learn more about Weyerhaeuser's Natural Climate Solutions business.

Alicia Robbins, vice president of Portfolio Analytics and Business Development, on "The Buyer-Supplier Partnership: Accelerating High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal," co-hosted by Carbon Direct and Weyerhaeuser, and "The Case for Long-Term Corporate Commitments to Natural Climate Solutions," hosted by Environmental Resources Management, Natural Climate Solutions Alliance and Forest Investor Club.

Ara Erickson, vice president of corporate sustainability, on "Supplying Materials & Minimizing Environmental Footprint," at Goldman Sachs' Global Sustainability Forum.

Jason Gibson, director of Forest Carbon, on "Growing Forest Resilience with Natural Climate Solutions," co-hosted with ACR at the International Emissions Trading Association's North American Climate Summit.

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