A new course prepares professionals to evaluate credible forest carbon projects
As carbon markets mature, organizations need people who can judge whether a forest carbon project holds up. Conservation Futures Academy’s newest course builds exactly that skill.
The voluntary carbon market has grown quickly, and the scrutiny has grown with it. Buyers, investors and regulators now want proof that a forest carbon project’s claims are credible before capital moves. The professionals who can deliver that proof, reading a project across ecology, accounting and finance, are in short supply.
A workforce gap with a number on it
A report from the International Labour Organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the U.N. Environment Programme projects up to 32 million nature-based jobs globally by 2030, with cross-sector skills named as the main barrier to filling them. Conservation Futures Academy is building courses to close that gap, and forest carbon is one of the clearest examples of where the skill shortage bites.
What the course teaches
Forestry and Carbon Project Fundamentals gives professionals a working framework for evaluating forest carbon projects, from forest inventory data through carbon accounting to project risk and financial feasibility. Across three applied modules, learners practice the concepts that decide credibility: additionality, baselines, leakage and permanence. They finish by building a Forest Carbon Feasibility and Risk Memo, a defensible go or no-go recommendation suited to an investment committee or a public-sector review.
The course is online, self-paced and built for forestry, conservation, ESG and carbon finance professionals. It stands alone or counts toward several Global Conservation Leadership certificate pathways.
Built on field expertise
The course is taught by practitioners who span the carbon project value chain, including a carbon lead at project developer PUR, the senior director of forest climate science at American Forests, the founder of Seris Forest Analytics and a research professor at Arizona State University. That range is rare, and it is the point.
Conservation Futures Academy is the professional learning arm of the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures, drawing on research from the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and built with partners such as Conservation International. Made possible by a $115 million gift from the Rob Walton Foundation in 2025, the Academy has reached more than 500 learners from over 400 organizations across four continents since launch.
Read more
Read the full breakdown of how forest carbon credits work and what makes a project credible on the Conservation Futures Academy newsroom, see the course details and enroll, or explore partnership opportunities with ASU Learning Enterprise.