Our chosen hypothetical avoided conversion project was a 700 acre forest property in Orange County. This large tract of forest had been managed for softwood timber for generations and was undergoing a small timber harvest to help the family cope with financial needs while we were taking measurements on the site. As property values in the surrounding area have skyrocketed since the family first purchased the land in the late eighteenth century and, according to our appraisal consultant, zoning policies for the region would likely be amenable to sale of the property out of the Forest-Use designation, this property provided a good example of a potential land conversion site.
The CAR protocol provided considerably higher quantities of carbon credits under this project scenario. By year 13 CAR has produced 85% more offsets than either ACR scenario and, due to the consistently steep trajectory of its Cumulative Credits Issued curve, by year 100 CAR has amassed over 154,480 credits, more than doubling the number produced by the ACR reimbursement scenario.
The financial returns from the CAR project are superior to those from either of the ACR scenarios. This advantage is slightly more pronounced in the 3% annual price increase model, with the CAR project reaching comparative advantages as high as 93% above that of the reimbursement ACR project, but the advantages are clear in the static price model as well, with CAR showing a consistent 80%+ value premium over ACR for the majority of the 100-year project period. In fact, in both the with and without price increase models the CAR project reaches a higher value in year 13 than the reimbursement ACR scenario can attain in the entire 100-year period.
