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Minimum Requirements

In December 2022, we published our report: Recommendations on minimum requirements for high-integrity soil carbon markets in the UK. The report aims to help shape the development of agreed standards and rules for investment in soil carbon in the UK.

The minimum requirements can be used to appraise existing and future soil carbon codes, standards and schemes according to a set of criteria - the rigour of their measurement, reporting and verification, as well as critical principles like permanence, additionality and leakage.

The report was developed with funding from Defra's Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF), which aims to support innovation and development of high integrity ecosystem service markets. We also published a Guidance document which provides additional context and rationale behind our proposals.

Recommendations on minimum requirements for high-integrity soil carbon markets in the UK

Guidance on minimum requirements for high-integrity soil carbon markets in the UK

Further Information

Background Information

In April 2022 the Consortium completed a review of 12 MRV methods and associated programmes from around the world. This analysis informed the content of the Recommendations, and concluded with a series of guiding principles and lessons for UK codes.

What makes an operational Farm Soil Carbon Code?  Insights from a global comparison of existing soil carbon codes using a structured analytical framework (Black et al 2022)  has been accepted  by the publication  Carbon Management  and can be found  here. 

The minimum requirements were compiled following a year-long consultation process with leading stakeholders from farming, research, business and policy-making. Four public stakeholder events as well as a series of one-to-one and target stakeholder workshops took place during which the Consortium established the views of these groups about their experience of the farm soil carbon market place. Written input into earlier drafts of the Recommendations was also invited.

You can find out more about this process and read/view outputs from the workshops here.

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