01 — How ATLAS Works
How it works.
ATLAS begins with a simple idea: understand your emissions, decide how much you want to take responsibility for, and connect that action to measurable forest growth.
Simple for the participant. Rigorous behind the scenes.
Overview
Calculate
Estimate annual emissions across everyday life.
Choose
Select the share you want to act on.
Connect to forest growth
Link that action to real biological removal capacity.
Measure
Check models against field reality and reconcile differences.
Store carbon for the long term
Distinguish temporary capture from carbon ultimately counted as durable removal.
02 — Start with your footprint
Start with your footprint.
ATLAS begins by estimating a person’s annual CO₂ footprint. The external ATLAS web application looks at major lifestyle categories such as transport, home energy, flights, food and everyday consumption.
The goal is not perfect microscopic accounting. The goal is a useful, understandable estimate of annual emissions that helps a person see the scale of their impact and decide what to do next.
- Transport
- Home energy
- Flights
- Food
- Everyday consumption
This page explains the process only. The actual footprint calculation happens in the external ATLAS application. For a broader overview, visit About ATLAS. For deeper context, explore Insights articles on carbon footprints, forest growth and durable carbon removal.
03 — Choose how much to act on
You choose how much to take responsibility for.
ATLAS does not require a visitor to address 100% of their estimated footprint. A person can decide what share they want to act on, conceptually at levels such as 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%.
25%
50%
75%
100%
Reduce what you can. Take responsibility for what remains.
04 — From CO₂ to real forest growth
From CO₂ to real forest growth.
ATLAS does not think of carbon removal only as a digital number. The system is designed to connect a person’s funded removal with the real biological removal capacity of trees in managed forest.
The number of trees associated with a person’s removal may change over time. That is expected. A young tree removes less CO₂ than a more mature tree, so the number of trees needed to represent the same removal can vary with tree age, measured growth, biomass, condition and current estimated removal capacity.
Illustrative logic
If a young tree removes only a small amount of CO₂ in a month, many trees may be needed to represent a larger removal amount. If older trees remove substantially more in that same period, fewer trees may represent the same amount. The relationship changes as the forest changes.
Your impact in the forest.
That language is emotional attribution, not legal ownership. The forest elements associated with a user’s impact may change as the biological system changes. The participant is connected to the physical removal capacity behind their contribution, not necessarily to one permanent set of individual trees.
ATLAS attribution does not imply legal ownership of the land or trees.
05 — Measurement, models and reality
Forests do not grow according to a spreadsheet.
ATLAS can model expected tree growth, but real forests experience dry years, wet years, drought, heat, disease, mortality, site variation and unexpected growth differences. That means models have to be checked against physical measurement.
At a high level, the approach is designed to use measurements such as tree diameter, height, age, biomass estimates, survival and growth over time. Those observations refine the carbon model instead of assuming the model was exact from the start.
Modelled
Measured
Reconciled
A model may predict one level of removal. Later field measurement may show slightly more or slightly less. For example, a model might estimate 150 kg CO₂ while later measurement suggests 140 kg or 160 kg. ATLAS is designed to reconcile that difference through reserve capacity and future allocation rather than pretending the first estimate was perfect.
06 — Allocation, reserve and no double counting
Every kilogram can only be counted once.
Conservative allocation
ATLAS is designed not to allocate the full theoretical biological removal capacity. A portion remains as unallocated reserve capacity because models are estimates and natural systems vary.
Reserve capacity
If actual measured removal is lower than expected, reserve capacity can help cover the difference. If actual removal is higher than expected, that surplus may later support future allocation after reconciliation. Reserve capacity helps manage uncertainty, but it does not eliminate all risk.
No double counting
The same kilogram of CO₂ can never be allocated twice. If a given amount of removal capacity from a tree has already been allocated across participants, it cannot also remain available somewhere else in the system.
Illustrative ledger
Available removal
Conceptual total capacity
Allocated
Already assigned to participants
Reserve
Held back as a conservative buffer
These are separate concepts. Available, allocated and reserve cannot all describe the same carbon at the same time.
07 — From biological capture to durable storage
Capturing carbon is not the same as keeping it out of the atmosphere.
Trees remove atmospheric CO₂ as they grow. But ATLAS does not want to treat all temporary biological capture as automatically durable removal. The project distinguishes between biological capture and durable storage.
Atmosphere
Tree
Material / durable storage pathway
Long-term storage
Some captured carbon may remain stored in long-lived wood products such as construction timber or other durable wood uses. Residual biomass that cannot become long-lived products may potentially enter durable storage pathways such as biochar. But not all biomass automatically becomes durable storage, and not all stored carbon lasts equally long.
Some carbon may return to the atmosphere through processing, energy use, decomposition, material losses or other lifecycle stages. That is why durable-removal accounting has to consider net storage, not gross tree capture alone.
One atom of carbon. One accounting history.
If carbon moves from a tree into timber or biochar, it is still the same carbon. It should not be counted once in the tree and again in the final material as two separate removals.
Funded / allocated
The amount of removal the participant has funded and that ATLAS reserves within the system.
Delivered
The biological removal that has physically occurred and has been measured or reconciled.
Durable
The portion ultimately counted as long-term stored carbon according to the ATLAS approach.
Public durability target
100+ YEARS
ATLAS publicly targets at least 100 years of storage for carbon ultimately counted as durable removal. This is a target for long-term durability, not a claim of guaranteed permanence.
08 — Final action
Start with your footprint.
You don’t need to understand every equation to take the first step. Estimate your footprint and explore what taking responsibility for part of it could mean.