B.C. auditor general flags flaws in forest carbon accounting

Mar. 19, 2025

British Columbia’s carbon-accounting process to help make forestry decisions isn’t consistent or transparent, a new report by the province’s auditor general indicates. 

The B.C. Forests Ministry uses carbon projections to help determine how management decisions could affect the amount of planet-warming carbon emissions the province's forests store and release into the atmosphere. 

The audit focused on the ministry’s methods for carbon projections between April 2022 and December 2024 in three areas: the forest investments program, the ministry’s allowable annual cut and forest landscape planning.

The forest ministry failed to establish open and consistent methods to make carbon projections involving the province’s annual allowable cut (AAC) and the Forest Investment Program (FIP), the report found.  

The AAC determines how much timber is harvested from B.C. forests each year, while the FIP involves government funding used to replant trees and enhance logged areas or forests damaged by fire, flooding or pests. 

To ensure projections are credible, carbon modelling needs to spell out how and what is being measured so it can be reviewed by the public, said Acting Auditor General Sheila Dodds. 

"This is essential to the quality of the measurements and builds confidence in the projections,” Dodds said in a statement. 

However, at the end of 2024, the ministry did finalize an open and consistent plan for carbon projections to inform landscape planning, Dodd noted.

A lack of transparency around the ministry is a longstanding problem, said Gary Bull, a professor emeritus with the University of British Columbia’s forestry department. 

“I’m in complete agreement with the auditor general,” he said. 

“In order to do carbon accounting you have to have some kind of consensus around the rules of the game,” he said. 

The ministry doesn’t publish a document explaining its carbon accounting practices, Bull said. 

Carbon modelling is done internally with no external review, and the ministry has refused his requests to share information on its modelling, he added. 

It’s not for lack of expertise, but likely for political reasons, Bull said, noting the ministry has experts capable of developing credible methodologies and planning documents. 

A wider inquiry or comprehensive review into how the province conducts carbon modelling is needed, Bull added. 

“I have a much broader range of concerns than those programs [that were audited],” he said. 

The auditor made two recommendations to the ministry and both were accepted, Dodd said. 

The auditor noted the ministry didn’t employ a system for calculating the impact of carbon stored and released from harvested wood products when calculating the annual cut, and recommended the ministry develop one. 

The ministry accepted the recommendation and will finalize guidelines this fall, the report said. 

When it came to forest investments, the program’s projects didn’t have a defined system for calculating the carbon benefits of initiatives and didn’t allow the confirmation or review of those benefits. 

Regardless, the ministry used their projections to inform briefing notes, press releases and report the carbon benefit against its targets in the ministry’s annual reports, the report said. 

This lack of transparency negatively affects the credibility of the ministry’s reporting, the report said. 

The forest ministry has accepted the recommendation to develop a consistent, open method for the investment program, promising it will be ready by the spring of 2026. 

Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee, agreed with the audit’s findings that methodology and openness are problematic when it comes to tallying emissions from forestry overall, not just in the three areas examined. 

Carbon projections are flawed because the province doesn't count emissions from forest fires, he said, adding B.C. forests have been net carbon emitters since 2003. 

Doing so would lead to dramatic reductions in the allowable cut to address conservation and climate concerns despite calls by the logging industry's push for higher limits, Coste said.

Proper carbon modelling would acknowledge that B.C. 's forests emit more carbon than they store and would require much larger protections and reductions in logging, Coste noted. 

“I don’t think B.C.'s ministry of forests wants any part of that story,” he said. 

The ministry did not respond to questions or a request for comment before the publication deadline. 

[Top photo: Acting Auditor General Sheila Dodd's released a report Tuesday that finds the methods the ministry of forestry uses to account for carbon aren't consistent or transparent. Photo submitted. ]