The Grantham Environmental Trust has invested in an Australian agricultural startup to commercialise soil carbon solutions that improve agricultural productivity while sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change. The deal between the Grantham Trust’s Neglected Climate Opportunities program and the innovative Australian company will be worth AU$2.5 million when fully rolled out as part of an initial seeding round of investment.
The announcement will be made by Matthew Warnken Managing Director of AgriProve, at the 6th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit 2019 at the MCG in Melbourne 8 & 9th May.
“The investment from the Grantham Trust is a recognition of the global potential of soil carbon as a means of reversing global warming...”, Mr Warnken said.
The US based Grantham Environmental Trust, founded by Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham, is a major funder of initiatives to reverse climate change.
“Soil carbon is the largest terrestrial sink of greenhouse gas emissions with enormous potential for mitigating climate change”, said Eric Smith, Investment Officer for the Grantham Environmental Trust.
You'll recall that on the 14th March this year, Australia’s first soil carbon credits were issued under the federal government’s AU$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) for the flagship Grounds Keeping project in eastern Victoria. They were also the first soil carbon credits globally to be eligible under a national target in accordance with The Paris Agreement and were sampled by Bootstrap Environmental Services.
Funds from the investment will be used to mainstream soil carbon as a pathway to agricultural productivity and improved water management.
Australia has unique conditions in which to incubate the commercialisation of soil carbon developments and large scale carbon abatement. It is the only nation to have a measurement based methodology that covers all forms of agriculture under a government based regulatory framework. This is coupled with a government backed market for the resulting carbon credits via the ERF.
Australia accounts for half of all measurement based soil carbon projects globally and this leadership position is due in large part to bipartisan political support for carbon farming domestically.
The Neglected Climate Opportunities investment in an Australian company will help build Australia as a test case for the development of soil carbon farming at scale which can then be adopted internationally.
Australian Carbon Farming Forecasts: The Carbon Farming Industry Roadmap forecasts that by 2030 the industry could deliver:
360-480 MtCO2e of carbon abatement
$10.8-$24 billion in revenue to regions & rural communities, and
10,500-21,000 regional and rural jobs.
You are invited to contact Bootstrap Environmental Services if you are a farmer and wish to be a part of carbon farming. Our role on carbon farming projects is to provide full field soil sampling services that are methodology compliant and audit ready, it is our specialty.
