Outlining the Soil Carbon Opportunity with BCarbon and Grassroots Carbon

The Western Stock Growers’ Association (WSGA) held a 2-part webinar Outlining the Soil Carbon Opportunity. The webinar is part of an information sharing series with the aim of increasing the abilities of agricultural producers to access and apply knowledge of nature-based solutions and increase the ecosystem services benefits provided through a market system. The first webinar featured BCarbon and Grassroots Carbon.

BCarbon are redefining how soil carbon stocks can be measured for carbon credit trading. BCarbon was established as a not for profit based on results of multi-stakeholder consultations to develop principles for an innovative measurement-based standard.

Grassroots Carbon works with ranchers that capture and store carbon through regenerative practices and carbon buyers that want to reduce their carbon footprint. They use the BCarbon process as the highest quality, independently verified, and rigours sampling of soil carbon.

“Nature based carbon capture will open the economy of the future,” says Jim Blackburn, research scientist in department of civil engineering Rice University in Texas and co-founder of the company BCarbon (https://bcarbon.org/).“Managing ecological services provided by the land will only become more valuable. It will drive decision making in the future.”

Many companies are looking to decrease emissions by 2050. They are looking for carbon neutral opportunities and products and this can happen through nature-based carbon capture. While this term may be new to some, the concept of carbon sequestration in soils is a familiar one to agriculture producers. They understand good management of soil, including carbon, increases agronomic profitability.

However, to monetize soil carbon in a market has been the challenge. Buyers of carbon reductions want the reductions to be real. Landowners need to grow it, prove it and find a way to sell it. The BCarbon standard provides a scientific and verifiable way to measure carbon dioxide removal from the soil.

Landowners have noted that requirements of additionality and permanence have been an issue when it comes to participation in the carbon market. Blackburn says BCarbon addressed this with a pragmatic approach.

BCarbon standard uses a 10-year rolling commitment to address issues of permanence. This is also compatible with landowner property rights.

Additionality is also redefined as a property right. The concept is based on the landowner proving that they are adding atmospheric carbon to soil or trees and so they have a right to sell that stored carbon. There is no requirement for landowners to manage their land under specific prescribed practices.

Emitters own the carbon dioxide released by their actions and therefore have the right to pay landowners to remove and store those emissions. Storage would not be verified without the additional carbon, ensuring the sale of credits are additional.

A landowner can decide to work directly with BCarbon or they may prefer to work with a third-party verifier, such as Grassroots Carbon to certify credits for sale.

The advantages of working with companies such as Grassroots Carbon is they provide the expertise for soil sampling metrics, find the carbon buyers and determine how to fulfil the other requirements to achieve credit certification. In this situation, there is a profit sharing agreement between Grassroots Carbon and the landowner with landowner receiving 80% of the carbon sales. 

“Grassroots Carbon also offers additional expertise in grazing management and soil health with tools such as Pasture Map (https://pasturemap.com/),”Megan Parks, Grassroots Carbon co-founder, says “How the land is managed is up to the landowner.  However, science and experience show soil carbon storage improves with adaptive or regenerative land management.”

Currently the Grassroots Carbon partners include several Texas ranchers and carbon buyers such as companies like Shopify (Canadian), Marathon Oil, and a national food brand ready to step up.

Credits:

Written By: Peg Strankman

Funding: Climate Action and Awareness Fund, Government of Canada

The Western Stock Growers’ Association (WSGA) is championing the development of a Grasslands Conservation Exchange. For additional information https://www.grasslandcapitalx.com/about