Penny Baalman

Penny Baalman is founder and Managing Director of GHG Offset Services.

Penny is a leading expert in forest climate change mitigation. She has worked in the area since 1999 from which time she was significantly involved in the development of standards for accounting and other policy and program instruments to allow for the credible creation of GHG reduction units from forest projects.

Penny was responsible for the creation of the first scheme-approved GHG certificates from forests, this was within the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (NSW GGAS) in 2005; she was also significantly involved in the development of rules for the NSW GGAS, the first scheme in the world to allow for the creation of GHG reduction units from forest projects, as the key forest expert contributor from 2001 to 2005.

The GHG accounting methodology and estimation system she developed in this process is believed to be one of the most accurate and sophisticated forest GHG estimation systems in the world. Following third party audit of the system for approval under the GGAS the auditors recommended it be entered into Australia’s premier environmental award, the Banksia Award, for which it was a finalist in 2006.

She has been extensively involved in the standardization of forest GHG accounting. She was the main author of Standards Australia’s Interim Standard AS 4978.1(Int)-2002 Carbon Accounting for Greenhouse Sinks Part 1: Afforestation and Reforestation, this was the first voluntary consensus national standard in the area of GHG accounting in the world. She was the key ‘removals’ advisor to all three parts of ISO 14064 and co-lead author of Part 2 ISO 14064 Greenhouse Gases - Part 2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions and removal enhancements. She further participated as a road tester and reviewer for WRI/WBCSD’s GHG Protocol for Project Accounting and as one of the core drafters for their LULUCF Guidance for GHG Project Accounting.

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As Det Norske Veritas’ Global Leader Forestry - Climate Change Services she was responsible for market assessment and auditor accreditation for all international forest-inclusive GHG offset programs. In 2006 as the Afforestation/Reforestation (A/R) sector expert for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with DNV she was the second Designated Operational Entity (DOE) to be given an indicative letter for sectoral scope 14 (A/R) and a member of the first group of approved certifiers for the Californian Climate Action Registry. She was also responsible for updating the CDM & JI Validation and Verification Manual (VVM) to include auditing templates for A/R project activities for the World Bank.

Penny has experience in investment in forest climate change mitigation projects and emissions trading and a detailed understanding of carbon markets.

She holds a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) from the Australian National University and has a background in forest resource assessment – forest inventory and spatial analysis.

Why You Choose Us?

GHG Offset Service's understanding relates to all relevant areas of forest climate change mitigation from policy and programs to every detail of project development and trading.

GHG Offset Services understanding of the area includes considerable depth and breadth across all relevant and related areas. This includes understanding of global GHG programs and policies and every aspect related to project development, investment and emissions trading.

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