Every January, millions of people make the same resolution: This is the year I’m getting in shape. Some buy a gym membership on January 2nd, swipe in twice, and never return. Others were already running five miles a day before the new year even started.
In both cases, the gym membership exists — but in neither case does it automatically lead to better health. Real improvement only happens if that membership causes new behavior: more workouts, more consistency, more effort than before.
That’s exactly how additionality works in carbon markets.
What Additionality Really Means
In carbon accounting, additionality asks a simple but critical question: Did this project cause something new to happen? Specifically, did it result in carbon sequestration that would not have occurred under a business-as-usual baseline?
If a forest would have grown and absorbed the same amount of carbon regardless of carbon credits, then those credits don’t represent real climate benefit. High-integrity carbon removal requires a clear causal link between carbon revenue and changed behavior that leads to additional carbon uptake.
How Carbon Yards Changes Forest Behavior
Carbon Yards creates a new market for sustainably sourced woodchips from certified forests. In many forest regions — especially in the U.S. Southeast — low-value biomass such as small-diameter trees and forest thinnings often has little or no economic outlet. Without demand, landowners frequently delay thinning, allow forests to stagnate, or dispose of material through burning or decay.
By paying for this feedstock, Carbon Yards changes the economics of forest management. Sustainable thinning and long-term forest stewardship become financially viable in situations where they previously were not. That shift leads to healthier forests with improved growth rates and higher long-term carbon sequestration.
Importantly, Carbon Yards does not claim credits for carbon already stored in existing trees. Instead, credits are tied to the additional forest growth — the incremental carbon absorbed above what would have occurred without these new management practices.
Generative Activity, Not Carbon Shuffling
Carbon Yards is designed around the distinction between generative and preservative activity.
The generative activity happens in the forest: carbon credits enable management decisions that unlock new biological growth and additional carbon uptake beyond the baseline. The preservative activity occurs after harvest, where biomass is stored in engineered facilities designed to prevent decomposition or wildfire release.
Together, this structure ensures that credits represent new carbon removed from the atmosphere and durably stored, not carbon simply shifted within the natural cycle.
Back to the New Year’s Resolution
Carbon Yards’ additionality is like the gym membership that actually changes your routine. It’s not the person who was already running every day — and it’s not the unused membership gathering dust in a wallet. It’s the moment when the decision to sign up leads to new habits, more workouts, and real progress.
In carbon terms, Carbon Yards doesn’t reward what forests were already doing. It rewards the new growth that only happens because the incentive exists — turning a climate resolution into measurable results.
Kyle Holland, PhD
Kyle is a Technical Advisor at EP Carbon, working to bring innovation and quality to carbon markets. Most recently, he founded Chestnut Carbon. Kyle holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.