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Use this free online tree carbon calculator to estimate how much carbon dioxide (CO₂) a tree removes from the atmosphere every year it grows. Simply select the age of the tree and the tree species, then press Calculate to see the approximate amount of carbon stored annually in its wood, branches, and roots.
How much carbon a tree absorbs depends on its species, age, and growth rate. Fast-growing species such as Paulownia or hybrid poplar can accumulate carbon quickly in their early years, while slower-growing hardwoods like oak and black walnut store dense, long-lasting carbon over many decades.
Some trees are simply better at storing carbon than others. For example, black locust will typically store more carbon than a comparable white pine. By comparing tree species and ages with this calculator, landowners, farmers, and urban planners can decide which trees to plant for maximum carbon sequestration, shade, and habitat value.
Tip: Use this tree carbon sequestration calculator alongside our Tree Spacing Calculator to estimate how much carbon an entire tree plantation can store per acre.
The tree carbon calculator estimates the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that is sequestered, or captured, by trees each year. It is an important climate tool that helps individuals, farmers, project developers, and organizations understand how much CO₂ is being removed from the atmosphere and stored in living trees and forest ecosystems.
By turning tree growth into numbers, the calculator makes it easier to design and evaluate tree planting programs that combat climate change. Whether you are planting a single shade tree in your backyard or developing a multi-acre reforestation project, you can use this calculator to estimate annual and long-term carbon benefits.
As an urban tree planting tool, it can also help you plan strategic trees in towns and cities where certain species—such as Douglas fir, black walnut, or eucalyptus—are particularly effective at capturing carbon in high-traffic, high-emission areas. In these locations, trees use excess CO₂ to grow, storing carbon in their trunks, branches, and roots while releasing oxygen into the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
Given the current trend of global warming and climate change, there has never been a better time to plant trees and nurture them to maturity. In general, the older and more mature a tree becomes (up to its peak growth years), the better it is at absorbing CO₂ and storing it in long-lived wood.
For a deeper look at how trees interact with the atmosphere as they grow, use the Carbon Capture Calculator below. This calculator tracks how a single tree’s leaf canopy and woody biomass change over time and estimates:
Using the calculator is simple: choose your tree type, enter the tree age (year), and press Calculate to see the results. You can then repeat the calculation for different years to model how the same tree’s carbon capture changes over its lifetime.
Use these results to estimate carbon credits from your trees, to support forest carbon projects, or to understand the long-term climate value of planting trees on your land, farm, or urban property.
Your donation supports a variety of tree projects, including a rooftop tree initiative in Nepal—a collaboration between a small local nonprofit and Tree Plantation—that aims to plant at least one tree on every suitable roof in Kathmandu. The goal is to reduce the staggering air pollution that settles in the mountain valleys from factories in neighboring regions.
Air pollution is so bad on some days that the elderly and children are not permitted to go outdoors. A few thousand trees have already been offered at no charge from the government of Nepal, but several thousand more are needed to scale the program. Collaboration between the government, the nonprofit, and Tree Plantation will create a sustainable tree program that can grow and supply “a tree for free” to any family that wants one in the city.
Our rooftop tree program will also be introduced in schools as part of the curriculum or as a graded project. The aim is to educate students about the importance of urban trees, clean air, and climate resilience, and to give them hands-on experience caring for living trees.
Bay leaf trees are planted in large, wide-mouth containers mounted on rooftops. The containers are wide and deep enough for a bay tree to grow for 50 years or more before it needs transplanting. These trees grow quickly, with large leaves (much like Paulownia) that gather roughly twice the pollution from the air compared to many other species. Greening even half the rooftops with trees could dramatically reduce pollution levels in Kathmandu in just a few years.
A carbon credit (often called a carbon offset or tax credit) is a government-regulated or voluntary environmental credit for greenhouse gas emissions that are reduced or removed from the atmosphere by an emission reduction project. These credits can be used by governments, industries, or private individuals to compensate for their own emissions.
Carbon credits are typically measured in tons of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) and are bought and sold through international brokers, online retailers, and various trading platforms. Businesses that find it hard to comply with emission limits purchase carbon credits to offset their excess emissions and reduce their tax burden while making finance available for renewable energy, forest protection, and reforestation projects around the world.
Our Carbon Credit for Climate Change program pools donations and tree assets from people worldwide to create one of the largest tree-based carbon credits in the world. This credit can be used to offset emissions from polluting industries and to participate in climate-change tree projects funded by green bonds and international agencies. Pooled donations are used to plant millions of additional trees for climate stabilization and habitat restoration.
Every tree planted is a metric waiting to be measured. Use our free online tree calculators to plan tree plantations, woodlots, windbreaks, and carbon projects.
Together, these tools help you design profitable, climate-smart tree projects, from small homestead woodlots to commercial tree plantations and carbon forests.
Partner with us in a land management and reforestation project to repurpose agricultural lands into appreciating tree assets. We have partnered with Growing to Give , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to create tree-planting partnerships with land donors who want to turn fallow fields into working forests and carbon sinks.
We have partnered with Growing to Give , a Washington State nonprofit, to create a land-and-tree partnership program that repurposes agricultural land into appreciating tree assets.
The program utilizes privately owned land to plant trees that benefit both the landowner and the environment. Trees can be managed for timber, carbon storage, wildlife habitat, or a combination of all three.
If you have 100 acres or more of flat, fallow farmland and would like to plant trees, we would like to talk to you. There are no fees to enter the program. You own the land; you own the trees we plant for you at no charge. There are no restrictions—you can sell or transfer the land with the trees at any time, while the trees continue to store carbon and build long-term value.
The Tree Carbon Calculator estimates how much carbon dioxide (CO₂) a tree removes from the atmosphere each year and stores in its trunk, branches, and roots. It focuses on above-ground and woody biomass, using species, age, and typical growth rates to approximate annual carbon sequestration per tree. The results are intended for education, planning, and project design, not as a formal carbon-offset verification.
The calculator uses typical growth curves for each tree species to estimate yearly biomass gain. A portion of that biomass is carbon, and the carbon value is converted into an equivalent amount of CO₂ removed from the atmosphere. Fast-growing species like Paulownia or hybrid poplar gain biomass quickly in their early years, while slower-growing hardwoods such as oak and black walnut add dense, long-lasting wood over many decades.
Because growth rates vary by climate, soil, and management, the calculator uses generalized estimates for each species. For precise project accounting, always combine these results with local inventory or forestry data.
Species differ in their growth rate, wood density, and mature size. For example, fast-growing species can accumulate a large volume of wood quickly, while dense hardwoods store more carbon per cubic foot of wood. A black locust tree will typically store more carbon than a comparable white pine of the same diameter and height because its wood is denser and it produces more biomass per unit of volume.
By comparing different tree species in the calculator, landowners and project developers can decide which combinations of hardwoods and softwoods will deliver the best mix of carbon storage, timber value, shade, and wildlife habitat.
Young trees often grow very quickly, adding trunk diameter, branch length, and canopy area each year. As a result, their annual carbon uptake usually increases as they move from seedling to sapling to mid-age. At maturity, growth slows and annual CO₂ capture levels off, even though the total amount of stored carbon in the tree remains high.
The calculator lets you input tree age so you can see how annual carbon storage changes across the life of a single tree and how the cumulative benefit grows over time.
Yes. To estimate carbon for an entire plantation or woodlot, first calculate the annual CO₂ stored per tree for a given species and age. Then multiply by the number of trees per acre or per project site.
You can use the Tree Spacing Calculator to estimate how many trees can be planted per acre, and then use this Tree Carbon Calculator to estimate carbon sequestration per acre. For projects focused on timber value as well as climate benefits, the Tree Value Calculator is helpful for modeling long-term financial returns from the same stand of trees.
The calculator is an excellent pre-feasibility and planning tool for carbon projects, helping you understand the potential CO₂ benefit of tree planting, reforestation, or agroforestry. However, most carbon credit programs require more detailed measurements, conservative assumptions, and third-party verification.
You can use this tool to:
For formal offset registration, work with a qualified forester or carbon project developer who can integrate these estimates into an approved methodology.
No. The Tree Carbon Calculator focuses primarily on tree biomass—the wood and branches above ground plus an estimate of carbon stored in roots. In reality, a forest also stores large amounts of carbon in soil organic matter, leaf litter, dead wood, and understory plants. These pools can substantially increase total ecosystem carbon, but they are more complex to model and are not fully captured in this tool.
For projects where whole-ecosystem carbon accounting is required, combine calculator results with field measurements, forestry inventories, or more detailed carbon models.
Urban foresters and city planners can use the calculator to prioritize street trees, park plantings, and green corridors that deliver maximum CO₂ capture in high-emission areas. By selecting species such as Douglas fir, black walnut, or eucalyptus where they are regionally appropriate, cities can target carbon hot spots—busy roads, industrial zones, and heat islands—and quantify the benefits of new plantings over time.
Combined with tree inventories and GIS mapping, the calculator helps build a case for urban tree canopy expansion as a cost-effective climate solution that also improves shade, air quality, and neighborhood livability.
Planting tall saplings instead of tiny seedlings jump-starts carbon sequestration. Larger, nursery-grown trees begin with more leaf area and woody biomass, so they can capture and store significant amounts of CO₂ just a few years after planting.
When combined with tools like the Tree Carbon Calculator, tall saplings allow landowners and project developers to model faster climate benefits and earlier revenue from carbon credit programs or ecosystem service payments. To learn more about this strategy, see Tree Seedlings, Plugs & Planting Trees.
Yes. One of the strengths of the Tree Plantation tools is that you can look at a tree or stand from multiple angles. Use this Tree Carbon Calculator to estimate annual CO₂ capture and total stored carbon, then switch to the Tree Value Calculator to estimate potential timber value at harvest based on species, diameter, and log length.
This dual view—carbon plus timber—helps landowners design plantations and woodlots that balance climate impact, long-term financial returns, and ecological benefits.
When a tree is cut, the carbon stored in its wood doesn’t disappear immediately. If the wood is turned into long-lived products like furniture, structural lumber, or veneers, much of that carbon remains locked away for decades. However, branches, roots, and waste wood eventually decompose or are burned, returning some CO₂ to the atmosphere.
Using tools like the Tree Carbon Calculator alongside forest management plans makes it easier to balance harvest cycles with ongoing replanting, so total forest carbon storage increases over time even as timber is periodically harvested.
For small home or farm plantings, updating carbon estimates every few years is usually enough to track progress. For larger reforestation, agroforestry, or carbon credit projects, annual or bi-annual updates are more useful. As trees grow, thinning, natural mortality, and harvests all change stand-level carbon.
A simple approach is to:
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