Native CarbonCrop Units providing a carbon credit alternative for native forest owners in New Zealand
The fight against climate change is a team sport, and we need every hectare of forest, and every landholder on the field. Yet some are still kept on the sidelines, especially regenerating native forests.
Climate change poses a huge threat to the planet, and forests are a key part of the solution. The time for climate action is now. We need to incentivise action today so the impact is felt where it matters most, today, not decades into the future.
We’re excited to launch Native CarbonCrop Units, getting more forests and more landholders on the field. Landholders get a potential revenue stream outside of the Emissions Trading Scheme. Voluntary offset buyers get the option to support native New Zealand forest regeneration.
We’re flipping the playbook from native reforestation projects struggling for funding and scale, to unlocking the potential of our existing regenerating forest, bringing:
- Scalable climate change solutions
- Incentives to drive broad adoption and positive action
- Financial value to native New Zealand forests
- Increased funding towards rural communities restoration initiatives, without losing more productive land
- Transparency, traceability, and integrity to carbon offsets for New Zealand businesses
- Homegrown AI climate technology that could be taken to the world…!
CarbonCrop’s Native CCUs get New Zealand’s regenerating native forest in on the climate action fight with an impact on when we need it – today. We’re ‘paying for performance’ to ensure there is a clear and consistent link between carbon sequestered (the performance) and carbon offsets (the payment). This market transparency and certainty gives landholders confidence and motivation to invest more into their regenerating native forests for even more impact. This is different to some carbon offset approaches that pay for promises. We didn’t come up with this approach ourselves – it’s called Incentive Theory, and we hope it catches on in the mainstream, as this is how we believe we can faster scale a global reforestation response.
Each Native CCU represents:
- 1 tonne of CO2, as assessed by CarbonCrop’s AI-enabled methodology
- Removed from the atmosphere within the last 5 years
- Durably stored in the growing biomass of regenerating native forest
- With a binding obligation on the landholder to ensure the CO2 stays sequestered for the next 100 years
CarbonCrop’s monitoring technology and tracking platform means we can do this at scale and high-integrity, without the overheads of traditional approaches. We’re excited that technology has reached a point where more people can make a difference in climate change action, and get rewarded for it.
Better for Landholders
If your forests fit nicely into the ETS requirements, we can help you register it for free. But if it doesn’t, which is the case for most regenerating native forests, we can recognise it with Native CCUs. This gives landholders the best of both worlds, and gets us more forests and more landholders in the game.
CarbonCrop’s technology simplifies the whole process from initial assessment through to registration. AI technology combined with satellite and aerial imagery means the CarbonCrop team can evaluate and map your land remotely – no need for expensive, time-consuming site visits, and a faster track to submission, whether for CarbonCrop Units and/or the ETS.
Better Offsets
Native CarbonCrop Units provide an offset that pays for performance, not promises. Rather than a “pay and pray” model, that pays up now for the promise of future reductions (then we all sit back and pray nothing bad happens over the next few decades), CarbonCrop pays for results. For actual carbon sucked out of the atmosphere by regenerating New Zealand native forest, backed by a binding obligation on the landholder to ensure that carbon stays stored for the next 100 years. The more you do to look after your forest, the more you can earn as we only recognise results with an annual monitoring review.
Not all offsets in the voluntary carbon market are created equal. The majority are based on avoided emissions (the promise not to do things with a negative impact, like deforestation). Many are not for actual removal of any existing carbon from the atmosphere at all, but for a reduction (putting less new carbon in). We know this is not enough to get us to net zero. Native CCUs are only for carbon removal, and the continued removal for the next 100 years, providing real and sustained offsets that buyers can trust.
This is a better offset compared to the typical voluntary carbon market unit, and anyone using them to offset emissions can be confident that they:
- Support NZ native forest: our national treasure, often left out of the ETS and critically short of funding.
- Make a difference: 2.8 million hectares of native bush and forest on private land could be unlocked for more carbon removal, more restoration, better biodiversity and water quality.
- Support local: Local landholders, local biodiversity, local certification, local marketplaces. Keeps 100% of the value and benefits inside the NZ economy.
- Scale your impact: Buying outside the ETS directs funds to the restoration and protection of forest unable to access the ETS, and has a bigger impact at a lower cost.
- Pay for performance, not a promise: Be sure your offset actually sucked a tonne of carbon out of the atmosphere, not just promised to do less at some point in the future.
How do we do it?
Using state-of-the-art technology, CarbonCrop assess the eligibility of forests for carbon credits on behalf of landholders.
Combining remote sensing with machine learning is what makes our processes unique. Our AI can analyse the species mix, height, density, and growth over time of regenerating native forest, based on decades of aerial imagery and satellite data. This provides our team an accurate image of the eligible forests and carbon stocks, on a selected piece of land.
Our AI models have assessed over 500,000 hectares of land for potential registration in the Emissions Trading Scheme, and are continuously learning to provide even more accurate information for our team to use when entering land for both the ETS and for Native CCU.
Our technology makes it possible to measure every hectare of forest, every year. Robust measurements can and should be part of any carbon project, and crediting should happen after the impact is delivered and verified.
While we continue to support landholders participating in the ETS, by allowing landholders to be recognised for all carbon sequestration happening on their land, Native CarbonCrop Units provide an option to get more native forests and more landholders into the fight.
We want to play our part in actually doing something about climate change. We are doing this through incentivising more forests, better forests and better offsets.
Find out what you have and what you could earn for your native forest, visit the CarbonCrop website www.carboncrop.nz.
Source: CarbonCrop