Setting up a Carbon Project
The key elements of setting up a carbon project include soil measurement and the development of a land management strategy.
To register and run a soil carbon project you must go through an upfront registration process, a soil baselining process, offset reporting, as well as comply with various monitoring, reporting and verification requirements.
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A breakdown of the soil carbon registration process
Registration:
Registration is what makes your soil carbon project official with the Clean Energy Regulator. It establishes your project location and size, eligibility and how you are going to improve soil carbon levels.
- Land Management Strategy created by Atlas Carbon and verified by our experts on how your property will sequester carbon
- Project Map that delineates project boundaries, exclusion areas, emission accounting areas and carbon estimation areas within cadastral boundaries
- Eligibility checks on land titles, ownership and historical activities
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Baselining
Baselining occurs after your project registration is approved. It entails setting your property's current soil carbon levels as the baseline which you are improving upon. Baselining includes:
- Soil stratification map optimised to reduce variance across carbon estimation areas (CEAs)
- Soil sampling with samples taken up to 1.1m deep
- Soil measurement in line with regulatory requirements
Project Reporting Requirements
Project report requirements refers to monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) and ensures the project is delivering what it is intended to.
Data collection
Track and maintain data and evidence that supports your eligible activities such as improved grazing, soil inputs and pasture seeding
Eligible activity compliance
Build a baseline of your historical activities, create an execution timeline and complete a well documented eligible activity compliance plan
Activity impact
Keep an eye on leading indicators throughout your carbon project period to assess if your actions are leading to meaningful soil carbon increases
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Different Types of Carbon Projects
Soil carbon projects are designed to enhance carbon sequestration in the soil, promote sustainable agriculture and mitigating climate change. Soil carbon is one of many different methods available in Australia.
When understanding what carbon project might best suit your farm it is important to consider the ways in which your land is currently utilised and how a project may impact that. Atlas Carbon currently only offers support for soil carbon projects on grazed land, however, we are considering ways to support integrated farming methodologies when the protocols are properly established.
Additional methodologies that may have future synergies with Atlas Carbon projects are outlined below.
Soil Carbon on cropped land
Farmers can earn ACCUs by increasing the amount of carbon stored in their soil. This comes from the breakdown of plants, microorganisms and animal waste. This method is best suited for properties with cropping operations that have the capacity to adopt new activities to increase carbon stores in their soils over the long term.
Environmental Plantings
This methodology involves planting a mixture of native and local tree, shrub and understory species to establish new and permanent forest cover. Areas allocated as the project area must restrict livestock grazing so that it does not affect the ability of your plantings to achieve or maintain forest cover and cannot remove any biomass outside of thinning for ecological purposes.
Herd Method
This methodology allows farmers who graze cattle on pasture to earn ACCUs by improving beef cattle maturity and quality. Under this methodology farmers are required to introduce a new herd management activity or vary an existing activity that moves them towards a younger, heavier and more productive livestock class.
What is the Clean Energy Regulator
The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) was established by the Clean Energy Regulator Act 2011.
The role of the CER is to create policies that provide a framework for the administration of schemes relating to carbon emissions in Australia. These policies look at measuring, managing, reducing and offsetting carbon emissions.
Why is the CER important to Atlas Carbon?
Atlas Carbon uses CER policies to develop submissions and reporting requirements for carbon projects we partner on. We utilise the ACCU scheme for our soil carbon projects.
Carbon Markets and Methods: The 4 Principles
Carbon markets create a market mechanism to drive a reduction in carbon emissions. In carbon markets businesses buy carbon credits to offset emissions that are more expensive to stop compared to the price of carbon credits.
The supply and demand of carbon credits often determines the price of these credits. The Australian Carbon market is regulated by the government. This means the government oversees the issuance of ACCUs. Australia is also moving towards becoming a compliance market in that large emitters must comply with emissions reductions standards and where they fail, they must offset with ACCUs. This differs to the global Voluntary Carbon Market, where carbon methods are overseen by independent, non-governmental bodies, and organisations choose to offset emissions as part of ESG committments.
Additionality
Additionality stipulates that something new or additional from BAU must occur to change the trajectory of carbon (you can’t be paid for doing nothing, for us, you must adopt a new farming practice)
Measurement
There must be a clear and accurate way to measure project-specific carbon impact (for us, we physically measure changes in soil carbon)
Permanence
You need to commit to doing something new for a long time (a project must last at least 25 years)
Leakage
A project can’t do something new and positive on one part of their business and shift carbon creating behaviours to another (in tree clearing avoidance methods, this means you can’t protect one part of your forest and cut down more of a different part)
Partner with Atlas Carbon
Discover how Atlas Carbon and MaiaGrazing can help you maximise your soil carbon potential and adopt new and resilient farming practices.
