The world is at a pivotal moment in the climate crisis. Less than a decade after the Paris Agreement, temperatures are pushing past the 1.5 °C threshold. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and exceeding 1.5 °C may soon be the norm.
Yet there’s still a great deal that organizations can do to slow and limit warming — ideally keeping global temperature rise below the larger Paris Agreement goal of 2 °C.
As public policy journalist Michael Grunwald recently said on an L.A. Times climate podcast: “1.6 °C would be better than 1.7 °C; 1.65 °C would be better than 1.7 °C. All our emissions matter.”
One powerful way to accelerate climate goals is to incorporate high-quality carbon credits that complement emission reduction strategies, especially for hard-to-abate emissions. The challenge for buyers is figuring out which credits are truly high-quality.
Here, we examine Improved Forest Management (IFM) — one of the most common nature-based project types in the voluntary carbon market — and how evolving verification standards are making it easier to source high-quality credits.
What Is IFM?
Improved Forest Management (IFM) refers to projects that enhance the capacity of forests on lands used for commercial forestry to sequester carbon. These projects typically:
- Adjust harvest practices (reduce harvesting, extend rotations, selective sustainable cutting).
- Increase carbon storage (managing for older, more carbon-dense stands).
- Remove carbon (tree growth promotes carbon removal and sequestration)
For example, extending the average age of trees through longer harvesting cycles not only expands carbon storage but also supports plant growth and soil health. IFM can also mitigate emissions by preserving ecosystems through easements and other conservation measures.
Examples of IFM Practices
Many projects blend multiple approaches. Common IFM strategies include:
- Harvest modifications: Reducing harvest levels, deferring harvest, extending rotations or cutting cycles, and higher-retention harvesting.
- Forest regeneration and enrichment: Stand irrigation/fertilization, enrichment planting, and managing competing vegetation to promote natural regeneration.
- Risk reduction and conservation: Reducing fire severity via fuel load treatments, uneven age management, designating reserves, and conservation easements.
These practices allow existing forests to sequester more carbon than they would compared to business-as-usual activities.
How IFM Differs from Other Project Types
- IFM vs. Afforestation: IFM enhances the management of an existing forest, whereas afforestation creates a new forest where one hasn’t existed.
- IFM vs. Avoided Deforestation: IFM often goes beyond avoidance to include active management practices that encourage new growth and increased carbon sequestration (e.g., thinning diseased trees to spur healthy regrowth).
How IFM Projects Generate Carbon Credits
Because IFM projects enable forests to remove more carbon from the atmosphere, rather than only avoiding emissions, they often generate carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits and avoidance credits.
To do so, projects must demonstrate that IFM practices result in greater carbon storage than what would occur under a baseline scenario—the more CO₂e retained versus the baseline, the more credits generated.
Baseline integrity is critical. If a project assumes an unrealistic logging scenario, it may overstate its additionality. Accurate baselines are the backbone of high-quality carbon credits.
Understanding Additionality
Additionality refers to the principle that emission reductions or carbon removals only occur because of financing from specific carbon credits. In other words, the project activity would not have happened without carbon credit revenue. This concept ensures that credited climate benefits are truly new and not the result of business-as-usual practices.
Examples of additionality in IFM:
- Financial additionality: Carbon credit revenue makes it economically viable for landowners to adopt practices that would otherwise be too costly. For example, landowners may reduce timber harvesting or extend rotation periods because carbon revenues offset the loss of logging income.
- Regulatory additionality: Project activities must go beyond what is already required by law. For instance, if new environmental regulations expand protected buffer zones around wetlands, those areas would no longer be eligible for crediting, as they are now mandated by regulation.
By ensuring both financial and regulatory additionality, IFM projects demonstrate that credited climate benefits are not only measurable but also depend directly on carbon market participation.
Co-Benefits of IFM Projects
Beyond carbon removals, IFM projects often deliver environmental and social co-benefits, such as:
- Biodiversity: Healthy forest growth supports richer ecosystems, habitats, and soil microbes.
- Water quality: Selective thinning reduces the runoff of pollutants into lakes and streams.
- Recreation: Healthy forests create opportunities for hiking, fishing, and community engagement.
- Natural disaster mitigation: Practices such as brush removal can reduce wildfire risk.
These benefits reinforce the long-term value of IFM credits and their contribution to climate-smart land stewardship.
Evolving Standards Around IFM and Additionality
Historically, IFM projects faced criticism over questionable baselines. For example, a project might assume heavy logging over 20 years, then claim credit for avoiding it even if demand for wood drops.
Today, standards are improving. One of the most significant changes is the shift from static to dynamic baselines. Instead of a fixed baseline at project start, dynamic baselines measure real-world data more frequently — often using imaging and machine learning.
- ACR’s IFM Protocol 2.1 now requires baseline updates every five years.
- The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) has approved ACR’s new methodology under its Core Carbon Principles (CCP), providing buyers with greater assurance that these credits are high-quality.
Anew’s Role in Advancing Baseline Precision
Anew has gone beyond ACR’s requirements by developing the Epoch Evaluation Platform™ — a proprietary platform that uses a technology initially developed for military, aerospace, and academic applications to evaluate carbon storage over time. Epoch updates the baseline with every carbon credit issuance (rather than every five years) using real-world data from the previous year, providing buyers with unprecedented confidence in additionality and greater assurance of the actual impact of the projects they finance.
How Buyers Can Approach IFM Projects Today
IFM offers one of the most significant opportunities for nature-based carbon removal and sequestration. Research published in Science suggests it has the second-highest mitigation potential of any natural climate solution in the U.S.
However, the voluntary market still contains projects of varying quality. Buyers should conduct due diligence and be prepared to ask questions such as:
- How was the baseline set?
- How permanent is the storage?
- What is being done to avoid double-counting?
Doing so provides greater assurance that carbon finance is actively reducing emissions and accelerating climate goals.
The Bottom Line
IFM projects — when implemented with rigorous baselines and clear additionality — offer a credible and high-impact way to reduce and avoid emissions while delivering significant co-benefits.
By developing and adhering to a science-based sustainability and communication plan, organizations can confidently incorporate high-quality IFM credits into their climate strategies and contribute to the fight against climate change.
Contact Anew to explore how our portfolio of IFM credits and other carbon solutions can complement your organization’s sustainability strategy.