February 19, 2025.5 minutes

From credit to credibility: Building a high-integrity soil carbon project

Karolina Kenney

The latest output from the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting held in Azerbaijan was met with frustration from climate activists and scientists; as one of the key mechanisms for global climate action, it has failed to deliver on its promises for years. The pressure to achieve global climate targets has never been more important as the world has sped past the 1.5 C degree global limit. As the US exits the Paris Agreement and falters on commitments as one of the largest global emitters, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) will continue to become a critical source of carbon finance. The VCM provides essential funding for climate projects that would otherwise struggle to secure investment.

These markets allow corporates to mitigate emissions by supporting verified initiatives, such as soil carbon sequestration, which contribute to global climate mitigation efforts. The win is two-fold such that corporates can offset their emissions, while landowners are rewarded with the finance necessary to force a real transition to regenerative practices.

However, despite their importance, VCMs face numerous reputational and functional challenges, especially regarding the perceived quality and permanence of carbon credits.

VCMs have come under increasing scrutiny, driven by deep dives that have uncovered faults in some types of projects and widespread misconceptions about how carbon credits are generated and validated. The warranted criticism of a few projects has led to a suspicion of the entire market, leaving high-integrity carbon projects to pay the price. One of the key concerns relates to the perceived permanence of soil carbon sequestration projects. Critics often express fears that soil carbon credits are unreliable due to a higher perceived risk of carbon reversal.

While the risk of reversal exists, it is important to note that significant mechanisms are in place to mitigate this risk. Corporates, often cautious by nature, seek assurances of credit reliability — and rightly so. Third party verification is just one way that corporates can feel confident in the credits they purchase. Leading standards in the VCM, such as Verra, also require comprehensive risk analyses in order to determine the buffer pool allocation and ensure that credits are accounted for, in case a reversal does occur. These safeguards play a critical role in providing confidence to buyers and maintaining the credibility of the market.

VCM standards serve as the stewards of delivering climate finance. Leading standards such as Verra, the Climate Action Reserve, and Gold Standard set stringent requirements for project developers, ensuring that only high-integrity credits make it to the market.

For example, standards mandate that developers produce detailed documentation on their projects, covering not only methodology alignment but also risk management, stakeholder engagement, and environmental integrity. This documentation is publicly accessible, allowing third parties to independently verify calculations and claims. Every data point submitted is meticulously reviewed by standards bodies, ensuring transparency and accountability at every stage.

Achieving certification under leading standards is no small feat. There are several key steps that the standard bodies require to get a project certified, which, in some cases, still excludes the verification and issuance step.

1. 1

   Submission of project documentation: Typically this includes submission of a project description, a comprehensive risk assessment to determine the buffer pool allocation, a modelling report, emission reduction and removal calculation sheets, and monitoring reports for each verification event.

2. 2

   Validation and verification: Independent validation and verification bodies (VVBs) review all documentation over several months. This involves thorough checks of project design, site visits, data verification, and model validation.

3. 3

   Standards review: After the VVB completes its assessment, the standards organisation conducts its own review — a process that can take well over a year, involving multiple rounds of feedback and revisions.

Agreena’s process for securing validation with the VVB took more than a year, including comprehensive on-site assessments, a full review of project design, and in-depth data checks. The subsequent Verra review spanned an additional eight months, with each round of review taking six weeks. In summary, project developers are put through a lengthy process.

One of the most persistent misconceptions about carbon credits is the assumption that the output of the quantification of one tonne of carbon sequestered equates directly to one carbon credit. In reality, the quantification process is far more complex, particularly for soil carbon projects.

Standards require that quantification be conducted using advanced process-based models such as DNDC, RothC, and DayCent. These models account for various factors, including farmer practices, climate zones, and soil types, to capture local conditions accurately. Additionally, real soil sampling data is incorporated to calibrate model outputs and enhance accuracy. In some cases, project developers will choose a measure and re-measure approach such that soil carbon output is always directly measured.

Strong monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) processes are essential to the credibility of carbon credits, as they help maintain trust in the market by ensuring that credits represent real, measurable, and permanent carbon reductions or removals. Without rigorous verification, the legitimacy of the market could be compromised, undermining corporate confidence in carbon offsetting as a viable climate solution. Achieving the highest level of certainty requires a multifaceted approach to data collection and verification.

Agreena employs a combined methodology, which includes:

1. 1

   Direct field data collection: Data is collected directly from farmers, covering key variables such as soil carbon sampling, tillage practices, cover cropping, and field boundaries.

2. 2

   Remote sensing cross-checks: Agreena uses remote sensing models trained with extensive ground-truth data to verify on-field practices.

3. 3

   Site visits: Standards require independent site visits to verify baseline practices and project implementation. Field visits are also conducted in-house to augment the MRV approach.

By leveraging localised support teams, advanced remote sensing technologies, and robust quality assurance protocols, Agreena ensures that its credits meet the highest standards of accuracy and integrity.

In an era of climate urgency, the voluntary carbon market plays a crucial role in mobilising finance for climate action. While misconceptions and scrutiny persist, the rigorous processes mandated by leading standards ensure that high-quality, reliable carbon credits reach the market. Companies like Agreena, which invest in meeting these stringent requirements, help build trust and drive meaningful impact.

As the weight of climate action increasingly falls on corporates, understanding the intricacies of carbon credits and the safeguards in place is essential. Through transparency, rigour, and ongoing innovation, the VCM can continue to play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change.

Orders for Verra-certified carbon credits are open.

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From credit to credibility: Explore the series

In this series, we're sharing an overview of what it's taken to build a carbon project that meets the highest of standards – Verra’s VM0042 methodology. This series of articles introduces the Agreena team that have worked closest to the project and continue to support the next steps to verification and issuance.

In this series you hear from:

1. Karolina Kenney, Senior Standards Specialist; outlining the processes of building a project with the highest integrity for the market;

2. Katja van Overeem, Blayne Lees and Ben Smith of the Data teams; explaining Agreena's work to ensure integrity of on-farm data capture at scale.

3. Dr Petros Georgiadis, Dr Marcos Alves and Dr Andrew Manderson from the Agreena Science and Statistical teams; unravelling the methodology to calculate soil carbon credits through sampling and modelling together;

Roberta McDonald, Head of Programme

From credit to credibility: The importance of data verification

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From credit to credibility: Quantifying and creating high-integrity carbon credits

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