How soil carbon accounting can improve to support investment-oriented actions promoting soil carbon storage

This CCAFS Info Note summarizes the major conclusions and key insights of the 2020 webinar and hackathon “​Enhancing investment in soil health and carbon storage.” Key messages from the Info Note include:

• The financial community needs a standardized, low-cost, fit-for-purpose approach to soil organic carbon (SOC) accounting that encourages investment and is adaptable.
• An accounting system should provide “value for money,” align with global goals and support co-benefits, while safeguarding reputational risks.
• Building a sequenced approach to improve accounting accuracy requires planning to reduce uncertainties of the accounting systems over time.
• Developing low-cost SOC accounting requires i) focusing on a few high-quality direct measurements, ii) reducing the uncertainty of models, and iii) enhancing capability to easily incorporate farm-level activity data.
• Moving to hybrid measurement approaches seems to be the most cost-effective pathway to achieve low-cost SOC accounting systems.

For more information on the event, check out the event resource website here.

Costa C Jr., Dittmer K, Shelton S, Bossio D, Zinyengere N, Luu P, Heinz S, Egenolf K, Rowland B, Zuluaga A, Klemme J, Mealey T, Smith M, Wollenberg E

2020