The economic value of improved forest carbon measurement ultimately expresses itself through carbon markets. These markets exist to channel capital toward emissions reductions and removals—but they function only to the extent that outcomes can be measured, reported, and verified with confidence.
Forest carbon represents the largest and most immediately deployable segment of the global carbon removal landscape.
Source: https://carbonwise.co/how-are-offsets-used-the-life-cycle-of-a-carbon-offset/
Natural climate solutions, particularly forest-based approaches, are estimated to have the potential to remove up to 7 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year at maturity. This scale makes forests central to both voluntary and compliance carbon markets.
However, participation at this scale requires robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). MRV is not an ancillary cost—it is the mechanism that converts biological activity into a tradable asset.
Across existing standards and project types, MRV costs for forest carbon projects can reach up to $1.60 per tonne of CO₂, reflecting:
These costs increase further as buyers demand higher confidence and regulators impose stricter requirements.
LiDAR does not simply augment existing MRV workflows—it can replace large components of them, particularly where uncertainty reduction is the primary objective.
At scale, LiDAR-based measurement:
As a result, LiDAR functions as a core MRV input, not a premium feature.
Applying a conservative framing:
This implies a serviceable market exceeding $70 billion annually for forest carbon measurement alone.
This estimate:
It reflects only the portion of MRV spend that could reasonably shift toward higher-fidelity, LiDAR-based measurement as confidence requirements rise.
Carbon markets do not fail due to lack of intent or capital. They fail when measurement credibility collapses.
As climate policy shifts from ambition to enforcement, MRV quality becomes infrastructure. In that context, LiDAR-enabled forest measurement will no longer be a niche technology. It is becoming a scaling mechanism for one of the world’s largest climate markets.
The forest carbon opportunity is only the beginning. High-confidence, global LiDAR measurement underpins a broader set of markets that rely on accurate, three-dimensional understanding of the Earth’s surface.
Those opportunities extend far beyond carbon.