Carol Jordan

Since its inception in 1998, ESI has offered a terrestrial carbon sequestration program dedicated to the dual objectives of providing quantifiable forestry carbon offsets while restoring biodiverse ecosystems through the recreation of native forest habitat.

Trees, especially hardwoods, are highly effective at naturally absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in forest biomass.  ESI provides a turnkey suite of services to create and quantify carbon offsets through large-scale afforestation initiatives based on native habitat restoration. To date ESI has planted approximately 24 million trees across 79,000 acres, funded by carbon interests.  Most of the planting has occurred in the ecologically altered region of the Lower Mississippi River Valley where multiple environmental benefits will permanently accrue from these projects.

As the U.S. moves toward a compliance marketplace, there is increasing attention to the science behind the quantification of carbon offsets, and to the standards that must be met in order to register and trade them through one or more of the greenhouse gas programs that are already in place in the voluntary marketplace, and others anticipated to arise.