Norske Green Resources aims to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and store the greenhouse gas in trees. Norway has invested over half a billion kroner in the forest company, which is the largest of its kind in East Africa. They boast that the trees they have planted consume a lot of carbon. But the boss will not answer how the company has calculated this. – It is striking and irresponsible for a company to advertise its carbon footprint and then refuse to reveal key details that justify the carbon accounting, says Jonathan Crook in Carbon Market Watch. – Undocumented climate claims should always be doubted, says Crook further. One of Green Resources’ pine plantations in Mozambique. Photo: Truls Alnes Antonsen Green Resources CEO Hans Lemm does not want to respond directly to Crook’s comments. Lemm is content to say that he thinks their reporting is quite transparent. – There is no financial incentive for the company to make the numbers look better, says Lemm. Green Resources Norwegian company founded in 1995 with activities in Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique. The core business is tree planting, sawmilling, wood processing and trade in wood products in Africa. The company also sells climate credits. Since its inception, billions have been invested in the company, which has struggled with poor results for years. Norway has supported the projects with large loans and investments, mainly through Norfund (NOK 559 million), the government’s investment fund for businesses in developing countries. Aker owner and billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke, property billionaire Erik Bøhler and former Orkla director and investor, Tom Vidar Rygh, are among the private investors who have been most heavily involved on the ownership side. This also applies to Edvin Austbø, former head of analysis at the brokerage house Carnegie. In 2022, Green Resources’ plantations totaled 33,000 hectares, according to the company’s annual accounts. The year before, the company reported the most plantation forest in Tanzania (15,500 hectares), followed by Mozambique (13,000 hectares) and Uganda (6,500 hectares). After loan defaults, lender Norfund became the owner in 2018. In October 2022, the shareholders of Green Resources entered into an agreement to sell the shares to a new investment fund, the African Forestry Impact Platform (AFIP). Statlige Norfund, as a partner in the new fund, has undertaken to reinvest most of the income from the sale in AFIP. Keeping the numbers to themselves Green Resources has planted large quantities of trees in three countries: Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. In its latest annual report, the company states that all the plantations have produced a net carbon reduction of just under 450,000 tonnes of CO₂e in total. That corresponds to the emissions from close to 60,000 Norwegians in 2021. But: Green Resources will not share its calculations. The company only provides news with information that is impossible to verify. 87 percent of the alleged climate gain originates from Mozambique. No independent third party has checked the company’s calculation for this country. In Uganda, the trees absorb more CO2 than the company’s emissions. In Tanzania, the emissions are greatest. In Mozambique it is the other way around. When the emissions are subtracted, Mozambique comes out clearly best. Mozambique will be the big winner, although there are approximately equal areas of plantations in Tanzania. The areas with trees are smaller in Uganda. The reported climate gain in Mozambique has more than doubled in one year. The manager explains the big difference by the fact that they have planted more trees in recent years. The company has included several new areas with trees that they had not previously considered, according to Hans Lemm. In Mozambique, all assessments of carbon footprints are made internally at Green Resources. In Tanzania and Uganda, on the other hand, two external expert groups have verified the company’s carbon projects. The reports are publicly available here. When the company itself measures its carbon footprint, it is based on a simplified version of the FICAT software. This has not been updated since 2012. The carbon footprint of Green Resources Green Resources publishes its annual carbon footprint based on internal assessments of these factors: How much CO2 is stored in plantation forests, based on the Microforest software. How much CO2 is stored in solid wood products, based on the company’s production and sales statistics. Emissions related to harvesting operations, fires and diesel use. Emissions related to electricity consumption in various operations. Emissions based on staff travel, flights and fuel consumed through product distribution. Source: Green Resources Tree planting wave globally Planting trees to mitigate climate change has become increasingly popular. In 30 years, the number of organizations working with tree planting in the tropics has tripled. They have promoted campaigns worldwide. Trillion Trees and Plant a Billion Trees are two well-known examples. The UN climate panel considers afforestation as an important method for removing carbon from the atmosphere. But large-scale afforestation can be risky. It can be harmful to biodiversity, according to the UN. It is also negative if tree planting competes with food production, as Green Resources has been criticized for. – Can go into the red Even though trees bind carbon through photosynthesis, it is not obvious that planting trees is good for the climate. – In many cases, the overall climate account is actually in the red, says Vigdis Vandvik, professor of biology at the University of Bergen. Vandvik is a member of the government’s natural risk committee and one of the experts from Norway who contributes to the work of the UN Nature Panel. Photo: Ronald Hole Fossåskaret The researcher speaks in general, starting from the Norwegian plantations in Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania. – Often, land- and water-demanding plantations like this are not a good idea. The climate effect is doubtful, says Vandvik. Green Resources does not make such reservations in its reports. The company wants to reduce its own emissions and further increase carbon capture in the coming years, the company reports. On the website, Green Resources presents itself as “the leading sustainable forestry company in Africa”. Photo: Screen dump Hidden climate costs The research shows that large-scale afforestation can have hidden climate costs, Vigdis Vandvik points out. The first cost comes even before the tree planting starts. The vegetation that was there before is cleared away. The soil is prepared for planting. Construction machinery is often used. Such activities produce emissions. Green Resources has taken machine use into account in its climate accounting, according to the company. Small baby trees are planted, and they sequester little carbon at the start, Vandvik continues. Therefore, it will take many years before newly planted forest can provide climate benefits. Bitten small eucalyptus trees at the nursery of Green Resources in Lichinga. The plan is for these to become upright trees. Photo: Truls Alnes Antonsen – Overlooks something completely fundamental The vegetation that is removed may have stored a lot of carbon as well. – In dry climates, savannas and grasslands can bind carbon as effectively as trees, so here the accounts will quickly go into the red, says Vandvik. This comparison is also not enough, according to the professor. We often overlook something completely fundamental. Namely the earth. Globally, it is estimated that, on average, soil stores 3–4 times more carbon than the plants that grow on top of it, emphasizes Vandvik. Large-scale tree planting can disrupt underground carbon stores, releasing carbon. – While the plants ensure rapid uptake, the soil is a much better and longer-term savings account for the carbon stores. The wetlands, old forests and savannahs have huge underground carbon stores. In addition, the soil is a much safer carbon store, points out Vandvik. If a fire occurs, as it often does in dry areas, trees and other vegetation can burn up, while the soil remains intact. Carbon stocks in the soil are not included in Green Resources’ internal calculations. The company only measures the annual change in volume of the trees in the plantations, confirms Hans Lemm.. After felling and production of transmission poles, Green Resources calculates how much CO₂ is stored in the wood products, without specifying which assumptions they use. Photo: Truls Alnes Antonsen – Enormous responsibility for nature Vigdis Vandvik is also concerned with the responsibility forest companies such as Green Resources have for nature. – You have an enormous responsibility to make sure that you do more good than harm. – What do you think about planting as much eucalyptus as Green Resources has done? – Little lucky. It can have a direct negative effect on the supply of water in areas that already struggle with drought, because eucalyptus are very thirsty and drink a lot of water. And the oil-rich leaves are easily flammable, replies Vandvik. Sverre Lundemo in WWF – the World Wide Fund for Nature is also concerned about nature. – Using foreign types of wood, as Green Resources does, is very rarely in the best interest of nature and the ecosystem there, says Lundemo. The UN’s new nature agreement has as one of its aims to prevent the introduction of alien, harmful species. Large-scale planting of eucalyptus can be a threat to local nature and ecosystems, Lundemo points out. “Eucalyptus absorbs large amounts of water from the soil so effectively that access to water for other plants, animals and people in the area can be reduced,” says the adviser for biodiversity at WWF. In order for the eucalyptus trees to do less damage, Green Resources has, among other things, established buffer zones around wetlands and water sources. Plantation forest with eucalyptus in Mozambique. Photo: Truls Alnes Antonsen Hans Lemm has no objections to any of the points made by biology professor Vigdis Vandvik. He emphasizes that plantation forests also have their advantages. The trees grow much faster than in natural forest. Therefore, the plantations can better meet increased demand for wood products, he believes. – It will not be possible or acceptable to satisfy this demand from natural forests, says Lemm. Carbon income With the background of the Kyoto Agreement, Green Resources saw the sale of climate quotas based on sequestration of CO₂ in the plantations as an immediate source of income while waiting for the trees to be ready for harvesting. The Kyoto Agreement from 1997 introduced various forms of trade in climate quotas that rich industrialized countries such as Norway can take in use. The purchase of climate quotas through the UN system Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was promoted as one of the ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For the most part, however, Green Resources’ sale of climate credits has taken place in the voluntary market for climate quotas, outside the UN system. Only the company’s plantation in Kachung in Uganda has had UN approval as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Today, the project is no longer eligible to issue credits through CDM. Going forward, Green Resources will only use the scheme for the voluntary market, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the company states. Two of the company’s projects are certified VCS, respectively one in Uganda and one in Tanzania, and both are in their final phase. Altogether, carbon revenues have accounted for less than 3 percent of Green Resources’ total revenues, according to the company. 10 percent of the carbon revenues must be invested back into local communities around the carbon projects. In Mozambique, the company has no carbon project and consequently local communities in Mozambique do not receive any money from the sale of climate credits at all.
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Will not show its climate account – news – Climate
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