The minimum requirements will establish a set of criteria for different aspects of individual farm soil carbon codes and projects. They will address the following three elements:
- The Evidence Base that underpins the codes, including the quality of the evidence demonstrating the likelihood of carbon sequestration or emissions reduction in eligible project types/locations, and
- The Code Specification, their approach to some of the critical principles at stake – additionality, permanence, leakage etc.
- The Monitoring, Reporting and Verification, how they use empirical data to establish change over time – e.g. the depth of soil testing, analytical, sampling and modelling methods used, approaches to determining reliability and accuracy of measurement and modelling methods.
Draft requirements are currently being compiled, based on the outcomes of our research: What makes an operational Farm Soil Carbon Code? Insights from a global comparison of existing soil carbon codes using a structured analytical framework, which was completed and submitted for publication earlier this year.
During the Summer-Autumn 2022 we will carry out extensive consultation among target stakeholders to gather opinions on these draft minimum requirements as follows:
- Via technical stakeholder workshops (August-September)
- Online consultation/feedback via our website (September)
- A public stakeholder event (late September)
Alongside the requirements, we will publish a draft governance framework which will demonstrate how the evaluation of codes, standards and schemes will be managed, decisions reached, support given and the principles underpinning the evaluation process kept up-to-date.
