The UK’s largest integrated forestry company BSW Group has launched a new trading platform to match landowners of forest and woodland with companies seeking to buy carbon credits.

In simple terms, this new platform, which is called CarbonStore, will match landowners that have forestry or woodland plantations on their farm with large companies seeking to buy carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions.

BSW say the new carbon trading platform will bring transparency and professionalism to the woodland carbon market.

The company says landowners can use the CarbonStore platform to openly market their forestry or woodland carbon credits to interested companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprint by buying offsets.

Carbon pricing

Carbon pricing is still in its early days, but it is likely to rise sharply over the coming years.

At the moment, the Irish Government has placed a notional value of €20/t on carbon in Ireland, but this is set to rise to €80/t over the coming years.

As the market for carbon develops and becomes more mature, landowners with forestry, woodland and potentially even grasslands will be able to sell the amount of carbon sequestered every year to companies looking to offset their emissions from the use of fossil fuels.