IFC and NCASI Release Enhanced Version of the Forest Industry Carbon Assessment Tool (FICAT)

Research Triangle Park, NC, USA, Mar 4, 2011 - The Forest Industry Carbon Assessment Tool (FICAT) is a computer-based tool that facilitates the development of facility or corporate carbon footprints. FICAT provides a framework for calculating greenhouse gas emissions throughout forest -based value chains, allowing companies to evaluate projects, processes, products and identify business case opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. FICAT was developed by NCASI for the International Finance Corporation(IFC), a member ofthe World Bank Group, with the support of the Government of Finland. IFC has made the tool available to the public without charge at www.FICATmodel.org. In response to feedback from users, NCASI recently added a number of features to FICAT. The enhanced version, FICAT Version 1.3-Beta, is now
available.

Major enhancements to FICAT include the following:

• A choice of cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-gate assessment boundaries

• A choice of methods to estimate the benefits of carbon stored in products (including the 100-year weighted average used in PAS2050)

> The ability to develop site-specific emission factors for wood production based on sites pecific information on forestry activities

> The ability to use detailed information on the inputs to manufacturing to develop product specific emission factors for any product

• Updated emission factors for transport, based on the latest information from the GHG Protocol Calculation Tool for transport (including factors for personal transport)

• The ability to export summary data into a form that can be imported into spreadsheet software

• The ability to produce pdf files of only the summary page (no need to produce the entire report)

• Improved file structure for opening/saving/creating files

The new version of FICAT contains updated instructions on the introduction screen for each FICAT element. The FICAT website, also contains a series of training videos on how to use FICAT Version 1.3-Beta. Registered users can provide suggestions for additional
enhancements via a survey on the FICAT website. NCASI will soon offer a series of webcasts to help FICAT users understand FICAT’s new features.