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.
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.
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.
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.
Press the start button to start lowering your carbon footprint
Over the years as it’s become obvious to any thinking person that global warming due to human activities is having devastating impacts around the world, many governments and some global companies have made commitments to reducing their contributions to the problem.
We have had numerous inter-governmental summits (Kyoto, Rio, Paris) and annual conferences where lots of people spend lots of time committing lots of money to doing lots of things to slow down global warming.
Sadly our Australian Government is not ideologically committed to this despite the droughts, bushfires and other clear signs we are in trouble. Our Pentecostal “Christian” leaders are assuming the second coming will save them before it’s too late.
However, for the rest of us who have our feet on the ground and want to leave our children and grand children a viable planet to live on, it seems too hard at times. We are told the cost to our economy is too great if we reduce our emissions. But as with so much else, the truth is far different than the rhetoric.
There are so many economic and scientific articles contradicting that view with only fossil fuel industry reports supporting it, that any average person can see the vested interests and paid opinions are only about protecting profits, not the environment.
The bad news for Australians is that at both the production (things we dig out of the ground and manufacture or export) and consumption (things we buy locally and internationally and consume) parts of our economy we are near the top of the list for carbon emissions. Our coal and gas fired power stations plus the coal and gas we export to other countries to burn are major contributors to this. With no obvious signs that this is going to change in the near future, we have to look elsewhere to make a difference.
Many of us feel the little things we do make no difference, and of course that is the subtle message coming from various sources to try to stop us taking any action.
But it is the little things we do every day, and repeat, and that are done by everyone in your family, your neighbours, your town, city state and country that do make a difference. It’s simple maths at the end of the day.
To make it really simple I have rounded off numbers so it’s easy to do the maths in our heads!
In total Australia accounts for 550 million tonnes of CO2e each year which means each person is responsible for 22 tonnes.
What we can do?
Plant a tree. Trees will absorb around 20kg/annum and around 1 tonne over its life. So we would each need to plant 1,100 trees AND not cut down any to break even. However, 1 mature tree produces enough oxygen for one person, so even if you can’t plant 1,100 trees, planting a few still makes a difference. If we all planted 10 trees per year (or paid farmers to do this on our behalf – they need all the help they can get), by 2050 that’s 300 trees each and 6 tonnes/annum and we are almost a third of the way there. How about starting a community garden with fruit trees you can pick from fresh and in season or encouraging your council to plant more shade trees in the local streets, reducing heat in summer while encouraging native birds and animals as well as bees to come back.
Drive less. Cars produce around 200gm/km when driving. If you drive 20,000km in a year that’s 4 tonnes of CO2e. But if you walked, caught public transport and reduced this by 50% then you will reduce this by 2 tonnes per year. We are up to 8 tonnes of savings and you have become slimmer and fitter by doing some more walking which means you are likely to live longer and see the fruits of your work. In the near future you could also swap to an electric vehicle. Instead of buying a home battery, your electric car could also provide power in a blackout as the battery is around 8-10 times the capacity of a typical home battery.
Buy locally grown and seasonal foods. This is not a discussion about the banned pesticides and questionable food standards of other countries, BUT Australian grown foods are generally far safer to eat than imported foods. However even here much of our food ends up being transported an average of 2000km from farm to manufacturer, to distribution centres, supermarkets then your home and adds a huge amount to emissions. Buying locally also encourages smaller and more sustainable practices in farming rather than wholesale clearing of land, large commercially driven monoculture production and high use of artificial fertilisers which all seriously impact the soil and air quality. It’s estimated around 4-5% of our emissions could be reduced if we bought more local foods. That’s the equivalent of around 1 tonne of CO2e and gets us to 9 tonnes. Not to mention seasonal and local foods employ local people and are SO MUCH tastier as they are fresh and haven’t been sitting in cold store or on a ship for 2-6 months.
Residential solar is an ideal way to invest in your home and save money on energy bills
Putting up solar to reduce your energy costs and emissions. This is obviously not always possible or practical but is definitely high on the list of things to do if you can. The typical 6.6kW solar system being installed today will reduce emissions by almost 9 tonnes per annum and with an expected life of around 25 years, that’s 225 tonnes in total. A 10kW solar system reduces emissions by over 14 tonnes/annum. That would take you to being carbon negative by 1 tonne per year, not to mention the $2500/annum you would save on energy bills.
Vote with your pocket. By this I mean choose what and who you buy things from based on their environmental and sustainability commitments. Tasmania’s clean green image has recently been tarnished by the salmon farming scandals, so don’t buy farmed salmon and these companies will get the message as demand and profits drop. Your superannuation or shares are being used by large companies to make profits and return dividends to you. But some still haven’t got the message, so change your investments (renewable energy companies are doing very well) or at the AGM ask questions about the company’s plans for global warming and sustainability. If enough people put pressure on, the executives and boards will have to change course as they are accountable to ALL shareholders.
And there it is. Some minor changes to how each of us thinks AND acts, a small investment in solar for our homes which pays for itself very quickly and each of us can be carbon neutral in a very short period of time. There are no major sacrifices to make as each of these changes has positive benefits for you and your family, friends and community.
Of course there are numerous other positive and practical things you can do. Design, build or renovate your home to minimise it’s embodied energy and need for heating and cooling. Good passive solar design, insulation, double glazing, thermal mass, use of renewable and recyclable materials, ensure all appliances are electric and install more solar panels to provide the energy you need. Don’t install gas – it’s not renewable and you can’t generate your own. Don’t accept single use anything, go op shopping and repurpose, have your own garden, compost food waste, pressure your council to recycle more.
Maintaining the status quo and doing nothing will hurt all of us long term.
Don’t leave it to someone else, speak up and take positive action.
Leave a legacy your grandchildren will be proud of.
If you want more help on going carbon neutral, give us a call on 0431010323 or email info@abses.com.au and we can work with you on positive energy solutions.
