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SEPTEMBER 2022
executive incentive plans, up from 16% in 2019." (Study by proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co.)
Dr Gething stressed that there is potential for the carbon offset to be greater than the carbon output of producing a pallet. "This is a great take-home message that we have, and a great story that we can tell," he said.
“We call these potential offsets because again, these are averaged into the manufacturing process and represent an overall industry average that's being done. But the take-home here certainly is clear that we have the potential to reduce more carbon than we emit.”
The question of carbon credits
The topic of carbon credits is a “really hot topic and something we’re certainly following,” Dr. Gething stated. Related to the pallet industry, he noted that there remain many questions. “There are multiple facets to this carbon credit question,” he said.
“We’re at a point where we're trying to look at it as holistically as possible because there are implications all the way down the wood pallet supply chain,” he said. “We want to make sure that whatever credit system may or may not be developed with wood would benefit the entire industry, and not be
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another.”
Generally speaking, the sustainability case for wood pallets is very strong. It is potentially carbon positive, with offsets outweighing emissions. And wood stores carbon “borrowed” from the atmosphere and then eventually returned at a point in the future.
One question that is currently being looked at by experts is how fast trees sequester carbon versus how fast the wood product might be returning it into the atmosphere. “This is a complicated question that experts are still really trying to understand further, but it really has long-term implications for things like burning wood for biofuel,” he said.
In contrast to the much shorter life of wood packaging, a wood home might last for 100 years or two to four growing cycles of timber and thus be more compelling as a carbon storage example.
There is also discussion around whether forests are more valuable standing versus being harvested for carbon sequestration. Dr. Gething noted that healthy forests grow faster and are more resistant to decay. On the other hand, as mature trees start to die, they begin returning carbon into the atmosphere. “How do we manage our forests so they sequester carbon optimally and minimize decay?” he asked.
Such questions could be a good thing, he noted because if we think about it from a carbon standpoint, “we might be cutting more wood in the future in order to minimize this decay, because we know we can then sequester that wood in wood products, rather than it just decomposing on the forest floor.”
...i"...it is useful to be able to communicate some the basics, such as that solid wood is renewable, reusable and recyclable, and that the carbon in wood comes from the atmosphere. When we make a pallet, we are borrowing it and storing it in a pallet bank."