Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative

As redwoods grow, they sequester carbon more efficiently than any other living organism on earth. After implementing certain management practices, we can apply a rigorous process to generate, verify and register measurable carbon credits that can be sold in the carbon market.
Unfortunately, it’s an expensive process and oftentimes owners of small properties like those in the Santa Cruz mountains cannot afford to develop, verify and monitor carbon offset projects alone. The solution? A cooperative.

Cooperatives have been organized throughout history to carry out a wide range of activities, often in response to economic and social stress. The first recognized cooperative business in the U.S. was a mutual fire insurance company, founded in 1752 by none other than Benjamin Franklin. It continues to operate today.

Just like Ben Franklin’s early fire insurance model, the Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative aims to reduce costs significantly by aggregating individual projects. It also aspires to leverage new, increasingly efficient inventory and monitoring tools to optimize returns on landowners’ investments. In exchange for joining the cooperative, participating landowners develop a management plan, sign a long-term participant contract and receive payments for their credits.

These carbon credits will be calculated based on an established protocol and will consider each property’s unique characteristics and the forest management practices implemented. The Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative will then sell the carbon credits to private companies at a negotiated price.

An initial California State Coastal Conservancy-funded feasibility study for the Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative was completed in early 2016. The current program development work is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Bay Area Conservation Program.

Planning for the Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative pilot project is underway. We anticipate two to five landowners and one credit buyer participating in the pilot. We are currently defining the rules of the program, identifying strategic partnerships, and collecting information from interested landowner and credit buyers.

Sempervirens Fund is a leader in pioneering new approaches in the carbon market. When we launched a joint effort with PG&E’s ClimateSmart program to sequester carbon in 425 acres of redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains in 2008, it was only the third such program in California.

When we succeeded in verifying our first batch of carbon offsets from that project and selling those credits, we created the world’s first official forest carbon offsets from a forest preservation project. Now we are exploring innovative approaches for enabling small landowners to better access the carbon market.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Santa Cruz Mountains Carbon Cooperative
Lessons Learned from the Lompico Forest Carbon Project