For years, forest landowners heard a compelling pitch: your trees aren’t just timber — they’re carbon sinks, and companies will pay you to keep them standing. Carbon credits were supposed to be the next great revenue stream for private forest land. A way to get paid for the natural benefits your forest provides.
That story has collapsed. And in January 2026, the organizations that write the rules for corporate carbon accounting made it official: forests don’t count.
What happened with the GHG Protocol
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the global standard for how companies measure and report their carbon emissions. Over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use it. When a corporation makes a climate commitment — net zero by 2030, carbon neutral by 2040 — GHG Protocol standards determine what counts toward that goal and what doesn’t.
In January, the GHG Protocol released its first-ever Land Sector and Removals Standard. After five years of development and input from over 300 reviewers, this was supposed to be the framework that finally brought land-based carbon into the corporate accounting mainstream.
It covers agriculture. It covers direct air capture — a technology that currently removes about 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. It covers land use change.
It does not cover forests.
The world’s largest natural carbon solution — forests absorb a net 7.6 billion tonnes of CO2 every year, more than all US emissions combined — was explicitly excluded. The Independent Standards Board cited “scientific disagreement” and a lack of pilot testing. They said more time was needed.
More time. From the groups that are telling us we are in a climate “emergency.”
What this means in practice
Without standardized accounting rules, companies have no accepted way to count forest carbon toward their climate goals. That matters because corporate demand is the engine that drives carbon credit markets. When companies can’t use forest credits for compliance or voluntary commitments, they stop buying them.
And they have stopped buying them. The voluntary carbon market for forest credits is in serious trouble:
- Transaction volumes fell 25 percent in 2024, with forest and land-use credits hit hardest
- REDD+ credits — the most common type of forest carbon credit — lost 62 percent of their value in a single year
- A Guardian/Die Zeit investigation found that more than 90 percent of forestry credits from the largest certifier did not represent real emissions reductions
- The Clean Air Task Force evaluated 20 forest carbon credit protocols and found most “too weak to ensure high-quality credits”
- Development costs for new forest carbon credits now run $6.70 to $15.20 per credit — two to six times higher than current spot prices, making new projects economically unviable
This isn’t a market downturn. It’s a structural failure.
The irony is staggering
Let’s be clear about the scale of what just got excluded from corporate carbon accounting.
Forests absorb a net 7.6 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. The IPCC says the land sector could deliver up to 30 percent of the emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Natural forest regrowth alone could sequester up to 8.9 billion tonnes annually by 2050 — roughly 23 percent of current global emissions.
Direct air capture, which received full accounting treatment in the new standard, currently removes on the order of tens of thousands of tonnes per year. That’s roughly a million times less than what forests do right now, today, for free.
The climate science and policy community talks constantly about urgency. They publish reports about tipping points and closing windows. And then, when it comes time to build the financial infrastructure that would channel corporate capital toward the planet’s most powerful existing carbon solution, they punt. They need more time. They need more pilot testing. They need to resolve philosophical disagreements.
Forests are the only shovel-ready carbon sequestration solution that operates at a meaningful scale this decade. They’re working right now. The infrastructure exists. The science is settled. Refusing to write the accounting rules for the one thing we could act on today — the one thing that could channel real capital toward real climate progress immediately — isn’t caution. It’s a dereliction of duty.
So where does that leave you?
If you own forest land and you were counting on carbon credits as a future income stream, the honest answer is: that path is blocked for now, and there’s no clear timeline for when it reopens.
But here’s what hasn’t changed: your trees are still growing. They’re still adding diameter every year, graduating from pulpwood into chip-n-saw and sawtimber, becoming more valuable with every growing season. The carbon market may have failed, but the timber market — while imperfect — is real, functioning, and has centuries of history behind it.
Timber is not a speculative asset waiting for regulators to write the rules. It’s a commodity with existing buyers, established infrastructure, and transparent pricing. Your sawtimber is worth real money today, and it will be worth more tomorrow as your trees continue to grow.
The timber opportunity is real — with some important caveats
We won’t pretend everything is rosy in timber markets either. If you own pine in the Southern US, you already know that the pulp market has structurally changed. Mill closures have removed millions of tons of demand, and landowners who planned their rotations around a functioning pulpwood market are dealing with real consequences.
But sawtimber markets remain strong. Hardwood markets are healthy. And for landowners who understand what they have — the species mix, the size distribution, the product classes on their property — there are real opportunities to make informed decisions about when and how to monetize their forest.
The landowners who get the best outcomes are the ones who do their homework. They know the difference between pulpwood and sawtimber. They understand what their forest will look like in five, ten, and thirty years. They don’t take the first offer without understanding what they’re selling.
We’ve written extensively about how to think through these decisions:
- How timber buyers decide what your trees are worth — See your forest the way buyers see it, with diameter distribution, product mix, and volume projections
- Your forest is a growing asset — here’s how to value it — Understand the difference between liquidation value and long-term appreciation, and why patience is often your best strategy
- What’s a fair price for your timber? — What goes into timber pricing and how to make sure you’re getting a fair deal
Know what you have before you make a move
Whether you’re thinking about a harvest this year or just want to understand your options, the starting point is the same: know your forest.
Forest Forecast is a free tool that gives you a ballpark sense of what your timber might be worth today, how that value could grow over time, and how different management approaches might play out over the next 30 years. It shows you diameter distribution, product mix, and value projections — the same kind of information a timber buyer will use to evaluate your property.
It’s not a substitute for a professional appraisal. But it puts you in a much stronger position before you talk to a buyer, a forester, or anyone else who wants to make you an offer.
Carbon markets may have let you down. Your forest hasn’t. It’s still growing, still appreciating, and still one of the most resilient assets you can own. The best thing you can do right now is understand exactly what you have — and make decisions from a position of knowledge, not uncertainty.
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Forest Forecast was funded by a grant from the U.S. Forest Service.