SCIENTIST SAYS / NGC MONTHLY SERIES / OCTOBER 2025
Researcher Sven van Baren
Wed 8 October 2025, NGC Communication Team
Researcher Sven van Baren. Photo: NGC Communication Team
SCIENTIST
SAYS – OUR MONTHLY INTERVIEW SERIES Get to know MSc Sven van Baren, a
researcher in Sustainable Forest Ecosystems at Wageningen University &
Research in Netherlands. At NextGenCarbon, Sven is contributing to insights in
greenhouse gas inventories from the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry)
emission sector. In the project a workshop with other LULUCF inventory
compilers is foreseen as part of the policy outreach. We had a chat with Sven
about the topic.
Hi Sven, please introduce yourself here briefly!
- I'm Sven van Baren, working at the Wageningen Environmental Research. There I am responsible for the National Greenhouse Gas inventory of the LULUCF sector in the Netherlands. Working on the reporting itself but also looking at ways how to improve this.
What are your expectations for the NextGenCarbon project?
- I'm really curious if this project can help me better understand how the carbon flows are flowing, in Europe and in the world, and how we can use this knowledge and also the data which is created to improve the national greenhouse gas inventories.
Could you explain what a greenhouse gas inventory is and for whom or what can greenhouse gas inventories be specifically helpful?
- A greenhouse gas inventory is an accounting of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted in a year in a certain country or area. It shows which emissions are occurring and what the sources are. An inventory is made of for example, energy, transport and industry emissions. But also, emissions from land use and forestry are accounted for. The LULUCF-sector but also the whole greenhouse gas inventory is used to inform climate policy, in, well, every individual, country, but also on European scale. But here are multiple ways to calculate these inventories, in this project we hope to bring these different calculation pathways closer together.
The LULUCF-sector but also the whole greenhouse gas inventory is used to inform climate policy, in, well, every individual, country, but also on European scale.
Tell us some fun fact about yourself here in the end?
I really like hiking and climbing, so I like to spend as much time as I can in the mountains. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of mountains in the Netherlands.
Where can our readers find you and your work?