Voluntary Carbon Markets
Welcome to the Voluntary Carbon Markets section of the MSU FCCP’s Landowner Resource Hub. This section aims to provide resources to improve landowner fluency with carbon markets and related terms. We also point to other resources about carbon programs for family forest owners. On this page, we point to resources from other Extension groups, the Michigan DNR, and more.
Table of Contents:
- The University of Wisconsin Extension Forest Carbon Markets Webpage
- MSU Forest Economics and Resource Management Carbon Calculator
- Whitepaper: Carbon Pricing: Carbon Markets and Carbon Taxes
- How a Forest Carbon Offset is Made and Sold
- 2024-25 Building Forest Carbon and Market Decision Capacity Webinar Series
- 2025 Learning Exchange Series
- Michigan’s Qualified Forest Program
- Carbon Programs for Family Forest Owners in Michigan
- Later: Forest offset types
The University of Wisconsin Extension Forest Carbon Markets Webpage
This webpage contains a wide array of useful information for landowners in the Lakes States. It covers the basics of forest carbon markets, with information about market access for family forest owners.
MSU Forest Economics and Resource Management Carbon Calculator
Led by Dr. Raju Pokharel, the MSU FERM Lab developed a tool to help landowners weigh the opportunity cost of engaging in a carbon market. Landowners enter information about their forest and intended management actions to understand how much money a carbon project could generate vs traditional forestry activities. This tool can be useful for certified foresters as well, to discuss different management options with landowners.
Additionally, Dr. Pokharel presented at the 2024-25 Building Forest Carbon and Market Decision Capacity Webinar Series, demonstrating the calculator.
Whitepaper: Carbon Pricing: Carbon Markets and Carbon Taxes
The MSU FCCP published a paper on carbon pricing, including how carbon markets operate. This paper provides a framework for understanding carbon markets, taxes, and key challenges facing forest carbon offsets.
How a Forest Carbon Offset is Made and Sold
This article, published by the Forest Owners Carbon and Climate Education (FOCCE) program at Penn State Extension, provides an introduction to offset market requirements, project development, and credit generation.
2024-25 Building Forest Carbon and Market Decision Capacity Webinar Series
The 2024-25 Building Forest Carbon and Market Decision Capacity Webinar Series provided a dive into carbon markets from the perspective of academics and other forest industry professionals. The series aimed to expand knowledge on forest carbon payment programs among landowners, state and federal natural resource professionals, consulting foresters, academics, and more. This series provides a solid baseline of knowledge about the key components of carbon markets.
Presentations include:
- Introduction to Forest Carbon Markets and Payment Programs
- Cost-benefit of Voluntary Carbon Projects: Demonstrating an Online Tool for Landowner Decision-Support
- Expert Panel on Forest Carbon Programs
- Voluntary and Compliance Forest Carbon Markets: Understanding the Opportunity
- Financial trade-offs of Managing Forestlands for Carbon and Wood Products
2025 Learning Exchange Series
The 2025 edition of the Learning Exchange Series convened speakers from across academia, the public and private sectors to discuss key challenges and research opportunities surrounding carbon markets. These webinars provide more context for those interested in learning about the intricacies of carbon markets.
Featured topics include:
- Permanence
- Additionality
- Leakage
- Monitoring, Reporting, & Verification
- Forest Carbon Offsets: Implications for the Forest Bioeconomy
- Social and Ecological Impacts
Michigan’s Qualified Forest Program
The Michigan Qualified Forest Program (QFP) encourages landowners to sustainably manage their forest lands, in exchange for preferential tax treatment. The QFP allows for concurrent carbon program enrollment with certain stipulations, which can increase landowner revenues. More information from MSU Extension can be found here.
Carbon Programs for Family Forest Owners in Michigan
Below are some programs forest owners in Michigan can engage with to enter carbon markets. Each comes with associated benefits and tradeoffs. We have provided links to each webpage for more information.
- Forest Carbon Works
- This program is aimed at landowners with more than 500 acres of forestland.
- Family Forest Carbon Program
- The FFCP requires landowners to own at least 30 acres of non-planted, naturally regenerating forest to enroll.
- LandYield
- LandYield is another carbon program for smallholders with at least 40 acres of forest.
Two-pager on Forest Carbon Offset Types
Coming soon!
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