Carbon+ Program FAQs

• Carbon+ Credits are developed in accordance with the Climate Farmers’ methodology “Adoption of Regenerative Land Management” verified by TÜV-Nord and created to be specifically adapted for farmers in the European Union.
• The methodology was created by Climate Farmers and follows the principles presented in ISO 14064-2 (2019).
• ISO 14064-2 (2019) is a norm which provides governments, businesses, regions and other organisations with a complementary set of tools for programs to quantify, monitor, report and verify greenhouse gas fluxes.
• Each Carbon+ Credit project also undergoes an external verification process through an accredited third party (TÜV Rheinland) in alignment with ISO 14064-2 to ensure coherence and alignment
  with the international carbon market standards.

To participate in Carbon+, we first need to understand if your farm is eligible for our service. To do that, the first step is for you to fill out our online form with some basic information about your farm and its location.

If your farm meets our requirements (of size, climate, and land use – see below), you will have access to an online questionnaire. Here, we ask you to enter information about the ownership situation of the agricultural land and your farm practices. This will allow us to estimate the CO2 sequestration potential of your farm and potential carbon credit generation.

If you decide to start with carbon farming, we will ask you to agree to the Terms & Conditions of our service and sign an individual contract. The conditions entail what is required for emitting carbon credits within the project period as well as any consequences of leaving the Carbon+ service before the end of the project.

Carbon+ is a service that pays farmers for sequestering CO2 and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) in your farm, both of which lead to the creation of carbon credits. This process is called carbon farming and is attained by transitioning to regenerative agriculture, which includes any type of farming that improves soils, reduces agrochemical use, and increases biodiversity. The path to improving soils depends on the context of each farm and requires a good understanding of the needs of each soil. Gaining this knowledge is important for successful carbon farming. Besides the opportunity to generate an additional income through carbon credits, we have built a support network to serve different needs:

• a mentoring program, where you can talk to and learn from farmers with similar farm types that have experience in certain practices
• access to our consulting network, if you need support on a more specific topic or transition planning (at an additional cost).
• our community, where you can learn from like-minded farmers, join farm events, follow community-led webinars and ask questions.

To join the Carbon+ Program, your farm should meet the following requirements:

• Your land is used for arable crops, silvopasture, grasslands, or tree crops. Peatlands are not eligible.
• Your farm should have at least 40 hectares of eligible agricultural land. This area should be owned, or if it is leased, the leasing contract should be of at least 5 years, covering the full crediting period.
• You must intend to or have recently started to implement practices that either sequester carbon in the soil or reduce the general emissions of the farm. Read more about the practices that we include here.
• The farm must be located in one of the pedoclimatic zones Mediterranean North or Mediterranean South. This roughly coincides with the countries Spain, Portugal and Italy. We are constantly expanding this area, so you can join the waiting list even if you do
  not fulfil this criterion.

To check eligibility, fill in this 1 min survey.

Every year we request detailed farm data at parcel level as well as relevant documents and other proof from the previous year. Based on this information, an emissions balance is calculated to estimate the amount of Carbon+ Credits that will be issued. Some farms may also be audited by Climate Farmers and the verification team of TÜV Rheinland to demonstrate the practices that have been reported. In addition, Climate Farmers uses remote sensing to verify the implementation of certain practices.

Our Carbon+ Program focuses on results rather than practices. Still, there are common practices that typically work well with carbon farming.
These include:

• Adaptive multi-paddock / regenerative grazing
• Agroforestry (new trees planted during the project period)
• Cover crops in arable land or tree plantations
• Residue management (e.g. pruning or crop residues)
• Application of organic matter (e.g. straw, manure or compost)
• Reduction or elimination of synthetic fertilisers
• Reduction of fossil fuel usage
• No-till / minimum till

You can find out more about these practices and their benefits here.

Additionality assesses whether a practice provides something new or ‘additional’ compared to the farm baseline. For the carbon credit buyer, it ensures that emissions are truly reduced through the beneficial impact of projects financed by carbon credits.

This means that there must be a positive change related to carbon sequestration or reduced emissions on your farm, via the implementation of new management techniques.

To also include more ‘advanced’ farms, we can set the baseline scenario (i.e. the reference point used to compare the carbon sequestration and emission reductions on your farm) up to 3 years in the past. This means that you can generate carbon credits for the year in which you join the program plus two additional years in the past. For example, if you join the program in 2023, you could generate credits for 2023, and also for 2022 and 2021.

Carbon credits are generated for outcomes such as improvements to the soil, increased productivity, and increased organic inputs. Credits are also generated based on reductions in fossil fuel emissions and reduced usage of Nitrogen-based synthetic fertilisers. This can only be calculated with farm-specific information. An initial estimate of your farms carbon capture will be calculated when you sign up for the program and provide the relevant information through our online form (link provided upon registration). The final value used to issue the certificates is based on your results which are calculated, monitored and verified after each year.

The amount of CO2 captured (or emissions avoided) is calculated by combining a scientific standard open-source soil carbon model (RothC) with estimations of soil carbon inputs resulting from the use of different farming activities, as well as estimations of other sources of greenhouse gases (methane and N2O). These estimations are based on formulas from up-to-date literature and accepted norms (e.g. IPCC standards). RothC has been validated with real-world data for different climatic zones and land use types and is implemented conservatively to ensure the reliability of the produced data.

We place a percentage of the carbon credits into a buffer account. The buffer is normally 20% of the generated carbon certificates per monitoring cycle. In individual cases, a risk premium of up to 10% may be added. Farm buffer certificates are pooled and serve as a collective risk mitigation mechanism.

We use the farm buffer certificates to cover “loss events”, e.g. unforeseen project-related risks. This includes crop yield variability, implementation of practices that reverse carbon dioxide removals, climate events, pest and disease outbreaks, loss of access to parts of the land, etc.

These buffer certificates are converted to normal certificates and sold annually during a 5-year retention period, following the crediting period. The risk premium can be applied if your lease duration is less than
10 years, thus accounting for the risk of losing the sequestered carbon

More details on buffer certificates can be found in our Terms & Conditions.

We will pay you each year for the amount of carbon that you actually store in your soils. This means the money you receive each year will vary. When the amount of biomass remaining in soils increases as a result of changes in farming practices, carbon sequestration is high at the beginning an then slows down until a new equilibrium is reached. This means that we expect you to receive higher payments during the first years of practice implementation and then slowly less each year thereafter.

We aim to sell your carbon certificates within 3 months after they have been issued. We can’t guarantee which price the certificates will be sold for, but we are committed to ensuring you get the best price available on the market. We will conduct an annual review of the European voluntary carbon market to try and obtain a target price for your carbon certificates.

The Carbon+ Program currently does not interfere with CAP payments or other agricultural subsidies. If this were to change in the future, you can declare a ‘Force Majeure’ event and terminate your contract with us.

The general idea is that you get a recurring annual payment in Q4 of the year following each calendar year that has been monitored. The time between signing up for the Carbon+ Program and receiving your first payment therefore depends on which calendar year has been defined as the Project Start Year and if you have made sufficient progress to be eligible for monitoring in that year. Example: If you signed up to Carbon Plus in November 2022 and defined 2023 as your first monitoring year, you will get your payment in Q3 2024. If you have started implementing changes before signing up and requested backdating, the timeline does not change, as we currently process backdated years together with the last calendar year.

Timeline can vary based on timely data input and external verification processes.

The voluntary and compliance carbon markets are two distinct carbon trading systems with different objectives, prices, participants, and rules. The compliance carbon market is driven by government regulations that require companies in specific high-emission sectors to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to comply with a specific target. On the other hand, the voluntary carbon market is driven by organisations and individuals who voluntarily choose to offset their emissions or invest in carbon credits to support sustainability goals.

Climate Farmers’ Carbon+ Credits are sold on the voluntary carbon market. Companies buy the credits that are generated from farmers sequestering carbon on their agricultural land.

There are no hidden or upfront costs in the Carbon+ Program. The payments are calculated by multiplying the amount of generated and issued carbon credits with the price realised per credit. Climate Farmers keeps a 35% commission on all Carbon credits sold. A determined percentage of the carbon credits will be kept in a buffer pool (see “What are buffer certificates? ” for details).

To get an idea of how much you’ll be able to earn, you fill out a simple form, providing some details about your farm and practices. Based on those inputs you’ll receive a first estimate of your earnings. This includes a minimum and maximum value to account for natural fluctuations in climate and plant growth.

Please keep in mind that the payments are calculated based on the amount of avoided and sequestered carbon, which will only be calculated after each yearly monitoring period. The payment can also be zero, if the net amount of avoided and sequestered carbon for the farm is zero or negative in a given year. You are capable of improving your results, and therefore you can directly influence the amount of money you receive.We are committed to ensuring you can get the best price available on the voluntary carbon market.

An increasing number of forward-thinking companies are interested in purchasing high-quality carbon certificates.

To sell your certificates, we work with value aligned resellers including Klimate and Ceezer. Klimate serves a number of industries, including the outdoors industry, advertising agencies and travel organisations. Ceezer partners with large companies that have set ambitious sustainability goals. One example of the kind of companies purchasing Carbon+ Certificates is 66° North, a certified B-Corp.

Climate Farmers reserves the right to review buyers and exclude specific industries. You can find out more about the resellers we work with here.

When signing a contract with us you commit to a 5-year crediting period, which is followed by a 5-year retention period.

During the crediting period, you’re required to submit farm data for each year so we can generate and certify your carbon certificates. You can also extend the credit period for another 5 years.

If you do not renew your contract with us for another 5 years, you will not have to submit data during the 5 year retention period, but we will continue to monitor your land via remote sensing to ensure the permanence of changes previously implemented. No new credits will be generated during this time, but the remaining buffer credits will be released yearly if a minimum standard is maintained, e.g. no drastic reversal of practices occurs.

The conditions of the Carbon+ program do not control the implementation or maintenance of specific practices but rather focus on jointly maximising results.

Joining the Carbon+ Program means you commit to transitioning your land to regenerative agriculture. We focus on results rather than practices. This empowers you to take the right decisions regarding changes on your farm without a complex approval process.

Your participation in the program means you commit to submitting relevant proof and required data within the timeframe communicated. This includes annual monitoring data. You also commit to not using any other carbon credit programs for the land included being used in our service.

Both parties will have the right to terminate the contract for both cause and convenience under clearly defined termination options and modalities that are outlined in our Terms & Conditions.

For example: You have the option to terminate for convenience by giving notice but always need to conclude the year’s monitoring cycle in which you hand in the notice. There is a clear outline of penalties in this case (e.g. retaining a percentage of outstanding or future carbon certificates)