Carbon 101
The time is ripe for climate-smart opportunities. Climate-crisis research and media reports about extreme, violent, and destructive weather events have consumers paying more attention to climate change. They’re scrutinizing companies, industries, and governments—and studies predict these savvy consumers are likely to use their buying power to drive change.
The world’s carbon-neutrality goals are front and center right now—and agriculture has the opportunity to play a leading role.
Carbon dioxide is the most prominent greenhouse gas (GHG), and it lasts for thousands of years in the atmosphere. Soil-based carbon sequestration is a way to remove CO2 from the air and store it somewhere it can't easily escape.1 The EarthOptics technology platform gives farmers, carbon markets, and CPG companies trusted accuracy in measuring, reporting, and verifying the amount of carbon stored in the soil. Other companies are using open-source models that estimate carbon retention based on farming practices and/or satellite imagery. Farmers using the EarthOptics tools have the ability to generate added value across the food supply chain by:
- helping companies offset their GHG emissions and create a new climate-smart product category;
- giving consumers the option to purchase climate-smart products that were accurately measured and verified
to have removed CO2 from the atmosphere; - empowering their business to market crops into premium food items and participate in carbon credit programs.
1 https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/soil-based-carbon-sequestration
Using the cutting-edge EarthOptics technology suite, farmers are able to make more informed decisions that can help them till smarter, sequester more carbon, market climate-smart crops for a premium and capitalize on carbon credit markets. In addition, the EarthOptics engineering and research teams are continuing to develop capabilities to measure and map more soil properties. These properties include nutrient and moisture content, which provides farmers and their partners with insights to drive climate-smart agricultural practices. Ultimately leading efforts toward climate change mitigation.
Carbon and soil by the numbers
The Complete Picture of the Carbon Cycle
A few percent change in soil carbon retention would neutralize all anthropogenic carbon emissions
- Consumers and CPG companies are increasing pressure on their supply chains to achieve carbon neutrality.
- Legislation and government organizations are also promoting soil carbon sequestration programs.
- Ag Carbon Markets where buyers are credits pay growers to adopt practices that sequester more soil carbon.
EarthOptics is proposing an additional incentive mechanism that is additive to any carbon credit program. The incentive is created through a differentiating Food Product labeling program enabled by the EarthOptics C-Mapper.