Page 20 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 2 - Spring 2022

more? Yes. We can do more with vibrant voluntary markets for trees. We want to build more with wood. Why wouldn’t we? We can innovate on wood. That’s a very useful thing that USDA can help foster and catalyze without stepping in the middle of the marketplace.
The USDA has recognized certification programs of things like bio-based products — acknowledging and even endorsing the good work of these programs. What about the registries that administer protocols for carbon content? USDA can do the same thing there — the same acknowledgement and the same endorsement that they’ve done to our certification programs — without having to step in the middle of them and recreate them. And they can invest in making those even more accessible to us so that we could use them more efficiently and effectively. Sometimes they’re overly complicated, sometimes there needs to be more flexibility. Sometimes there needs to be adjustments that make it frankly easier for us to engage in the marketplace using these tools. [They can do that] without
sacrificing the rigor of what they’re providing as a carbon benefit. USDA can invest in engaging the landowners to identify those improvements and then get those improvements put in place in those protocols.
Q: What is Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), and how does it impact us? (And what will the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have to do with it?)
DT: Everybody knows what generally accepted accounting practices are. You have to pass an audit through your company. You know that there’s a set of rules that you have to follow in order to appropriately account for your financial performance, right? So we know how that works. ESG is the analogue of that for sustainability.
Environment — what impact are you having on the environment? Social —
what impact are you having on your communities and social matters? Governance — how are you managing, how are you governing internally ways that are fair and equitable for employees or even the state? So ESG then becomes an analogue, and it’s not brand-new. It’s been around, and it’s evolving, and it’s becoming more relevant. Why do
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18 | GEORGIA FORESTRY