Soil Carbon Baselining Workshop

Background

Environmental baselining is now an important requirement for organisations looking to understand the state of the natural assets in their care, how they change over time and the impact of their interventions.

Soil carbon baselining is under particular scrutiny given the increase of national and corporate climate targets, supply chains reporting requirements, the evolving market for carbon storage and sequestration and the emergence of a variety of new measurement technologies.

However, the question of how to design a soil carbon baseline and for what purpose is a challenge for a variety of stakeholders – farmers, corporates, governments, and landowners.  It raises a range of technical, scientific, and financial questions – including how to balance integrity with costs against an uncertain policy backdrop, and changing expectations of what is meant by high-integrity.

Format

This workshop looks to address some of these questions by exploring different approaches taken by a range of organisations who have carried out soil carbon baselining at different scales and for different purposes. The workshop will hear case studies from:

• Helaina Black, Agricarbon
• Tom White, Yeo Valley Farms
• Hamish Campbell, Farmline
• Felicity Ross, National Trust
• John Gilliland, Arc Zero and Northern Ireland Soil Nutrient Health Scheme
• Chris Gooderham, Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board
• William Blake, University of Plymouth and LUNZ Openland project

There will be a Q&A session and guided discussion, all of which will be captured in the output.

Outputs

The session will be recorded and presented on the LUNZ website together with a workshop report outlining the key findings, discussions, key questions, and next steps.