E177 Asger Strange-Olesen: The Additionality Problem

Asger Strange Olesen has spent 15 years building context most people in this space only claim to have. Carbon developer, EU Climate Directorate, FSC Global Chief Climate Officer, now heading climate and biodiversity at IWC — a $6bn forestry asset manager backed by BNP Paribas. He has been inside the policy rooms, the certification bodies, the investor meetings, and the forest itself.This conversation goes to places the sector tends to avoid. Why additionality — the foundational rule of the carbon market — is philosophically broken, and why no equivalent market mechanism on earth works the same way. Why forests already in existence are technically worth nothing under current rules. Why every government programme designed to fix the land use crisis has collapsed under its own bureaucracy before reaching the people it was designed to change.The data conversation is equally forensic — backpack lidar, open-source carbon modelling, and why the real breakthrough in forest measurement isn't above the canopy. It's what's happening beneath it.Plus Asger's policy blueprint for 2030: a mandatory nature and carbon footprint on every product sold in European markets, simple enough that land managers don't need to believe in climate change to participate.Complexity doesn't scale. This episode makes the case.