Understanding and Managing Leakage in Forest-Based Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Projects

This 2002 report provides an overview of leakage in greenhouse gas mitigation projects — the unintended increase or decrease in GHG emissions that occur outside a project’s accounting boundary. Leakages caused by project activities can be significant in relation to the benefits of a project and the potential for leakage should be minimized during the project development stage. This report describes some of the approaches used by project developers and proposed by analysts for effectively managing or accounting for leakage, to ensure that projects produce real, measurable greenhouse gas benefits.