Regulation and future prospects of the Italian voluntary forestry carbon credit market

doi:10.3832/ifor5120-019

Regulation and future prospects of the Italian voluntary forestry carbon credit market

Saverio Maluccio , Teresa Grassi, Raoul Romano

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 219-225 (2026)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor5120-019
Published: Jun 08, 2026 - Copyright © 2026 SISEF

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The carbon market for the forestry sector is internationally recognized as a policy tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to support afforestation and to improve forest management activities, which would not be economically viable without the sale of carbon credits. The international market is regulated by standards based on Guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, and in many countries, domestic markets are emerging, managed by governments whose credits can be used to meet national climate targets under the UNFCCC. In Italy, the market is currently unregulated, despite the approval of a law to establish a national registry for agriculture- and forest-based carbon credits. An analysis of the voluntary carbon credit market for the Italian forestry sector from 2011 to 2024 revealed an active market, with credit transactions priced in line with other European domestic markets. Although volumes are lower, they have been growing in recent years and peaked in the period 2021-2022. Monitoring by the Carbon Monitoring Unit highlighted critical issues and verified the impact and future prospects of the market if it is regulated by the introduction of National Guidelines and the National Registry of agriculture and forestry carbon credits.

Keywords

Carbon Credits Market, Market Governance, Forestry, Improved Forest Management, Forest Economics

Authors’ address

(1)

0009-0002-5934-3238
0009-0005-5981-9656
0000-0003-2158-5266
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics - Policies and Bioeconomy Research Center, Rome (Italy)

Corresponding author

Saverio Maluccio
saverio.maluccio@crea.gov.it

Citation

Maluccio S, Grassi T, Romano R (2026). Regulation and future prospects of the Italian voluntary forestry carbon credit market. iForest 19: 219-225. - doi: 10.3832/ifor5120-019

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: Dec 19, 2025
Accepted: Apr 05, 2026

First online: Jun 08, 2026
Publication Date: Jun 30, 2026
Publication Time: 2.13 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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