Tag: carbon footprint

Beyond Carbon Zero, Blog - carbon reduction

What is a soil carbon programme?

Feb 3, 2022 by Mat Lutter

What is a soil carbon programme and what can it do to improve my farm and finances?

“Soil carbon sequestration is a naturally occurring process that involves atmospheric carbon dioxide capture and storage in soils. Carbon atoms constantly move from the atmosphere to the Earth and then back to the atmosphere. The world’s soil, along with forests and oceans, is a major carbon sink—it has the ability to absorb and store massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Because our planet and its atmosphere are a closed environment, the amount of carbon in this system does not change. Where the carbon is located, however, in the atmosphere or on Earth, is constantly changing. Since the industrial revolution, human activities, including conversion of grasslands and other ecosystems to industrial agriculture uses, have degraded soils and led to the release of billions of tons of carbon from soils into the atmosphere.”

There is a lot of misunderstandings and confusion about what a soil carbon programme is and how it works. Farmers know how to manage and grow a wide variety of crops and livestock, but are not always as knowledgeable about what is going on beneath the topsoil.

At the end of last year the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) streamlined further the application process to register a soil carbon programme for Australian Farmers.

If through better environmental practices, farmers can improve the levels of carbon in their soil, it can be worth hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions of dollars of carbon credits that can be claimed by the farm owner as part of a long term investment programme.

The registration process with the CER can be tricky, and involve a bit of effort and capital to set up, but once implemented, soil carbon can accumulate in the background with one or two soil sample audits, and after five to ten years, be a welcome top up to any superannuation or retirement fund! 

Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU’s) are drought proof, fire proof and have been rising sharply in value over the last year as large businesses want to buy them to offset their own carbon footprints to meet corporate goals. The farmer who successfully grows soil carbon can see unintended benefits of healthier soils, better crop yields, better water retention and cleaner run off due to the lack of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers the farm is now using.

Carbon farming is not for everyone, but If you or your farm manager is interested in finding out more about this process, ABS can help arrange an environmental audit of your current level of carbon in the soil, and provide a professional assessment of the potential returns and what the capital outlay is required to get registered.

If you would like an environmental assessment or to find out more about soil carbon, send us an email at info@abses.com.au or call 0434557094

For a more detailed explanation of soil carbon and soil sampling this you tube video is very helpful.

What is a soil carbon programme?
Beyond Carbon Zero, Blog - carbon reduction

Our carbon cup runneth over!

Sep 23, 2021 by Mat Lutter

How can you tell if a company is serious about their carbon commitments?

Multi-national corporations have only in the last year or two have stepped up rhetoric and action to lower their carbon footprint and are in many cases participating in the voluntary carbon offset market. But is this a genuinely effective strategy or “greenwashing?”

green wash

We like to think of the carbon in the atmosphere as a bath that is being filled with multiple taps from around the world and it’s getting pretty full.

Reducing your business’ carbon footprint is of course a good thing, as it slows the flow of water from your own tap, but what really needs to happen is for people to start taking water out of the bath. This is what genuine carbon sequestration does, and as humans we need to punch more holes in the bottom of the bath!

carbon sink or carbon bath overflow
We need more carbon sinks, not baths overflowing with no where to go

Three simple steps to zero

  1. Get an accurate baseline of your current carbon footprint and form a sensible plan to reduce your power, gas and water and waste. This is typically easier if you are a small organization and not expensive to do.
  • Review the carbon content of the products or services you provide and include the fuel used to bring it to your office and/or customer. The level of complexity rises as businesses will need an on site audit and the consultant to work with your engineers or designers to understand the product and perhaps offer some simple ways to reduce its carbon content.
  • Do a comprehensive review of your upstream and downstream supply chain. Contact all your suppliers and ask them to provide you with a statement of their own efforts to meet your environmental and social governance goals. This can take some time to complete, but we are already seeing supermarket chains pushing this agenda down to the farms and food processors that supply them. Failure to comply could lose your biggest customers. Getting ahead of this can save your business a lot of potentially lost revenue or put you in the box seat for new contracts.
We need to have a holistic view when it comes to carbon emissions and how we reduce them

Driving to NET ZERO and BEYOND

Microsoft is taking the unusual step of taking the superhighway to zero, and they can afford it. In 2020 management approved a programme to find ways to not only be carbon neutral, but to effectively remove all the carbon the company has produced since 1975! This will in part be funded by a carbon tax on their suppliers, but also a $1bn innovation and low carbon fund. Perhaps one of the biggest problems in the carbon offset market is the lack of credible auditing to verify genuine carbon sequestration. Microsoft have decided to use global accountants Deloitte to write their sustainability report.

The problem now is going to be finding enough genuine carbon sequestration projects that can be verified as taking out enough tons of carbon to meet that 1975 to present goal! This is a constantly evolving market said to be worth $48 billion dollars in the next 10 years. Maybe humanity will find that bath plug and start making a meaningful impact on draining enough carbon out.

Beyond Carbon Zero, Blog - carbon reduction

How can your business reduce its carbon footprint?

Aug 25, 2021 by Colin Gillam

Where do I start?

Reducing your personal or business carbon footprint is largely the same process, but focusing on different aspects of how you generate emissions in the first place.

Carbon Footprint Large
Carbon Footprint Medium
Carbon Footprint Small

Shrinking your footprint at home, can be simple lifestyle choices and habits. Shopping better and recycling more.

In the office, managers often don’t know where to start to shrink the corporate footprint as there are so many more moving parts. A move towards carbon zero requires a more organized regime, with annual KPI targets and audits. Sometimes customer pressure to go greener can be a huge driver. For example, large supermarket chains like Coles and Woolworths will ask their supply chain what they are doing to lower their carbon footprint. Business managers need to have answers and a bold plan or they could miss out on business in favour of a greener supplier.

Carbon Border Tax

Some heavily polluting businesses simply can’t get to carbon zero. Talk of a carbon border tax for goods exported from Australia to the EU is new, and might be a powerful incentive to buy what’s called “carbon offset credits”. This creates opportunities for some businesses such as farmers, but not for most. To avoid being disadvantaged businesses need to start planning for a low carbon future.

Carbon Footprint Reduction

Establish a Baseline

To establish the businesses baseline carbon footprint, it is important to understand there are two sources, baseline, and primary carbon.

Primary footprint is the sum of direct emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels for energy consumption and transportation. The secondary footprint is the sum of indirect emissions of greenhouse gases during the life cycle of products used by an organisation. For the purposes of this discussion, we will just look at primary carbon.

Businesses typically emit exponentially more carbon than individuals — after all, industrial products and services often create very high amounts of carbon dioxide over their life cycle. The flip side to this is that businesses have the ability to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by changing how business is done.  There are often incentives which can be significant financially, but social and environmental outcomes offer more than just a feel good marketing opportunity. As consumers shift towards low carbon businesses, this creates new ways to deliver goods and services that are more sustainable. Businesses who have made the shift will be more competitive and increase market share.

The Tools and Help you Need

ABS has a carbon tracker and assessment tool that will cover your power and gas, water, fossil fuel usage and waste calculator. Once you have established what your base line is, its up to the business owners and stakeholders to decide an annual reduction target. We can help you write and implement that plan and what it will cost.

There are big subsidies for things like commercial solar and swapping power and gas contracts to renewable energy sources can get businesses off to a flying start. Often this can actually save businesses money from day one. Using less water, grey water recycling and reviewing heat management in production processes can be done sometimes with the help of a government grant and again lower overheads.

As the carbon shoe size starts to shrink there are unintended benefits. If you are an exporter you have reduced automatically your potential carbon border tax into Europe. If you would like to find out more about how going cleaner and greener can save your business money, contact us for a free no obligation conversation at info@abses.com.au.

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