Glossary

Additionality - Additionality refers to carbon sequestration over and above that which would have happened anyway in the absence of a given project or activity. Buyers of carbon units want to know that their input has enabled more carbon sequestration than would otherwise have happened under existing legal, financial and business circumstances. Under the financial consideration, a project is only additional if it requires carbon income to turn it from a project which is not financially viable/ worthwhile (compared to an alternative non-woodland use) to one which is financially viable.

Area - Carbon can be claimed for the net woodland area, rather than the gross area. Net woodland area is the area of a project planted with trees or allowed to colonise/regenerate naturally. It excludes any designed or other open areas. Gross woodland area is the area of a project including any open areas. This can include designed open ground as well as other open land or water bodies.

Assignment - Labelling/assigning a Pending Issuance Unit on the UK Land Carbon Registry with the name of the buyer. Assigned units cannot be re-sold, but they can be used and ‘retired’ once they are verified.

Baseline - The projected changes to carbon on the site if the project weren’t to go ahead (the ‘business as usual’ scenario). This is a reference projection to which the carbon benefits of project activities can be compared over the project lifetime.

Basic monitoring report - A report summarising the results of basic monitoring carried out for projects where the small project calculator was used or by standard projects where self-assessment is carried out.

Buffer - A carbon pool of ‘unclaimed carbon’ to cover unavoidable potential losses which may occur from the project over time, thus ensuring the permanence of verified Woodland Carbon Units. The unit type for buffer units is PIU Reserve or WCU Reserve.

Carbon dioxide - A naturally occurring gas and by-product of burning fossil fuels or biomass, land-use changes and industrial processes. It is the principal anthropogenic (caused by human activity) greenhouse gas that affects the Earth’s climate.

Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) - A measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based on their global warming potential. It converts the amounts of other greenhouse gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same warming effect. This standardisation simplifies the understanding and comparison of the total impact of different greenhouse gases on climate change.

Carbon pool - A system that can store and/or accumulate carbon, e.g. above-ground biomass, leaf/needle litter, dead wood and soil organic carbon.

Carbon sequestration - Direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through land-use change, afforestation, reforestation and/or increases in soil carbon.

Carbon statement - A statement of what a project will sequester or has sequestered to date. It can be restated by more than one party with an interest in a project.

Climate change - Change or changes in the climate which can be directly or indirectly attributed to human activity (UNFCCC Article 1).

Compensatory planting - New woodland created to compensate for woodland lost elsewhere which provides at least the equivalent woodland-related net public benefit embodied in the woodland which was removed (e.g. for development (windfarms or in urban areas) or where woodland is removed to restore open habitats).

Crofting and common grazing - Crofting and common grazings are forms of land tenure and occupation unique to Scotland. The rights and obligations of landowners, tenant crofters and of shareholders in common grazings are defined and regulated under the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993 as amended by the Crofting Reform etc Act 2007 (asp 7), the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (asp 14), and the Crofting (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2013. More information is available from the Crofting Commission at www.crofting.scotland.gov.uk   

Deforestation - Permanent or long-term removal of woodland; the direct, human-induced conversion of forested land to another land use, or the long-term reduction of the tree canopy cover below the minimum 20% threshold.

Double counting - There are a number of issues which might result in double counting:

• Double selling - The same carbon unit is sold more than once to different parties. The incidence of this can be minimised by using a carbon unit registry.
• Double certification - The same carbon project is validated/verified against two or more carbon standards. The incidence of this can be minimised by insisting that projects only use one registry and carbon registries ensure that a project is not already registered on another carbon registry.
• Double monetisation - A carbon unit is monetised once as a voluntary unit by a project and a second time as a national-level Greenhouse Gas allowance.
• Double claiming - An organisation or government makes a claim about the same unit of carbon reduction as another organisation. It may be perceived as satisfactory that an organisation claims ‘we created a carbon neutral product’ and another organisation claims ‘we sell a carbon neutral product’ or government claims ‘we reached our emissions reduction target’.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) - These regulations apply to forestry related projects. If the Forestry Commission, Scottish Forestry, Natural Resources Wales or Northern Ireland Forest Service considers that project proposals may have a significant effect on the environment, the proposer must obtain consent for the work from the relevant body and submit an Environmental Statement as part of the application for consent.

Forest - See ‘woodland’.

Group - A group of projects that work together to gain validation/verification. These projects will be coordinated and overseen by a group scheme manager. The group scheme manager is responsible for ensuring that all projects within the group conform to the code.

Leakage - Any greenhouse gas emissions outside the project boundary as a result of the project (e.g. displacement of agricultural activities might result in deforestation or intensification of use of non-wooded land elsewhere).

Loss of carbon - When the woodland loses some of its standing volume and, therefore, carbon due to avoidable or unavoidable circumstances.

Long-term average carbon stock - The mean carbon stock over the long-term in a woodland, averaged over several whole rotations, if clearfelling. For projects where there is no clearfelling, the long-term average is assumed to be no less than the carbon predicted to be sequestered by Year 100, for a given scenario. For sites where clearfelling is proposed, the long-term average is calculated over several whole rotations of a given length, where the carbon stock onsite varies from zero at the start of each rotation to a maximum just before clearfelling.

Natural regeneration - Plants growing on a previously unwooded site as a result of natural seedfall or suckering. The term is also used to describe the silvicultural practices used to encourage natural seeding and establishment.

Organic soil - Soil which contains organic (or peat) surface horizon overlaying the mineral layer or rock. Organic soils have 30cm or more depth peat in England and 50cm or more depth peat in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Pending Issuance Unit - The purpose of these units is to demonstrate the quantity of potential future sequestration. Pending Issuance Units will help to keep track of up-front sales/ purchases, but they cannot be retired or used/reported.

Permanence - The issue of ensuring that removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is permanent and not reversed at a future point in time. Woodland projects carry a risk of reversibility so safeguards shall be in place to minimise that risk and guarantee replacement or alternative woodland should a reversal occur.

Project design document - A document created by the project developer for validation to describe how the project meets the requirements of the code at the outset.

Priority habitat or species - Habitats and species that have been listed as priorities for conservation action in biodiversity strategies.

Project developer - The individual or company who represents a project/group through the validation/ verification process or in the UK Land Carbon Registry. The project developer could be the landowner, a third party representing the landowner or the group manager.

Project duration - The time over which project activities are to be monitored, verified and carbon sequestration claims are to be made. Projects can be up to 100 years in duration.

Project end date - The last day a project accounts for carbon sequestration. The project end date is the project start date plus the project duration. If the start date is 01/04/2013 and project duration is 100 years, then the end date is 31/03/2113.

Project implementation date - The date when work begins onsite – either fencing, adoption of an enhanced herbivore/deer management plan, ground preparation or planting, whichever occurs first.

Project progress report - A report created by the project developer for verification to demonstrate how the project continues to meet the requirements of the code.

Project registration date - The date when a project moves from ‘draft’ to ‘under development’ status in the UK Land Carbon Registry.

Project start date - The date planting is complete (or for natural colonisation/regeneration, the date that fencing is completed and/or herbivore/deer management plan has begun to be implemented) and the project starts to account for carbon sequestration.

Retirement - Moving a Woodland Carbon Unit on the UK Land Carbon Registry to a publicly available ‘retirement’ account to show it has been taken out of circulation and cannot be used again.

Reversal - A reversal is when the net greenhouse gas benefit of a project, taking into account the baseline, leakage and project carbon sequestration, is negative in a given monitoring period. The size of the reversal is the net carbon sequestration at the current verification minus the net carbon sequestration at the previous verification.

Self-assessment - A project is marked as self-assessed if a project progress report and basic monitoring report are uploaded to the registry at a monitoring point after year 15. In this case, no Pending Issuance Units will be converted to Woodland Carbon Units. Self-assessment can only be used in a limited number of cases.

Small project - A single project with ten-hectare net planting area or less where the small project process is used.

Soumings - The number and type of stock an individual croft can graze on a common grazings.

Standard project - Single woodland creation project which can be any size and can constitute several individual blocks of woodland with planting spanning up to five consecutive planting seasons. Blocks of woodland shall be part of contiguous land ownership unit or shall be under the same ownership and management plan. See also small project.

Sustainable forest management - The stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity and vitality, as well as their potential to fulfil, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions at local, national and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.

UK Land Carbon Registry - The official record of the location of projects, the predicted and actual carbon sequestration as well as the owners and retirement of carbon units.

Validation - The initial evaluation of a project against the standards of the Woodland Carbon Code, undertaken by a certification body accredited by the UK Accreditation Service.

Validation/verification body - Independent third-party organisations accredited by the UK Accreditation Service to validate or verify Woodland Carbon Code projects.

Verification - The ongoing evaluation of a project against the standards of the Woodland Carbon Code, undertaken by a verification body accredited by the UK Accreditation Service. Verification assesses the carbon sequestration that has actually occurred as well as continuing sustainable forest management.

Vintage - The time period in which units are delivered. For the Woodland Carbon Code, the delivery of carbon is predicted and verified in five or ten-yearly blocks (e.g. 2020 to 2030). Each time period is known as a vintage.

Woodland Carbon Code team - The secretariat function is provided by Scottish Forestry on behalf of the governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

Woodland - Land under stands of trees with a canopy cover of at least 20% (25% in Northern Ireland) or having the potential to achieve this. This definition includes integral open space and felled areas that are awaiting restocking (replanting). Consistent with the UK Forestry Standard, this includes short rotation coppice and short rotation forestry, but does not include individual trees, orchards, ornamental or garden trees, tree nurseries or the management of Christmas trees. (This definition is also applicable to ‘forest’).

Woodland Carbon Unit - When a project is verified, Pending Issuance Units which have been confirmed as sequestered will be converted to Woodland Carbon Units. These units can be considered as guaranteed, delivered carbon units so can be retired and used/reported.

Woodland creation - The direct, human-induced conversion to woodland of land that has not previously been forested according to historical records. The code sets a threshold of a continuous absence of woodland over the previous 25 years.