Trimble has announced the launch of a voluntary carbon marketplace to connect farmers with buyers seeking emissions reductions and removals.
By connecting stakeholders and aggregating verifiable data, the company says the new exchange will enable participation in carbon markets and sustainability programs that were previously too time-consuming or complex.
“Farmers have long struggled to comprehensively report and tell their sustainability story in quantifiable and verifiable terms. They need a technology solution that brings greater value and helps bring structure to disconnected data,” says Darren Howie, Trimble’s director in the area of emerging digital and sustainability, in a Jan. 4 news release announcing the exchange.
He says Trimble is taking a “farm-centric approach.”
“While many carbon programs work by identifying a specific practice to implement and search for farms, Trimble is partnering with agronomy-focused, enterprise agriculture companies to optimize interventions at the farm level, then aggregate the impacts to support emission reduction programs for companies upstream in the agriculture value chain,” explains Howie.
Participants’ farm records will be collected using Trimble Ag Software or any other farm management software that connects via an API. Once verified, Trimble says the exchange will automatically develop protocol forms that are required by companies looking to reduce or track emissions, including for Scope 3 emissions reduction programs. (Scope 3 includes indirect emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities in a company’s value chain.)
It would also calculates payments to farmers, where applicable, the company says.
“One key roadblock to other carbon programs has been data aggregation. Trimble has been on the farm and collecting data for decades,” says Dietmar Grimm, Trimble’s vice president, corporate strategy and sustainability. “Through its data aggregation capabilities, the Connected Climate Exchange is able to deliver quantifiable and verifiable reports, validated by independent third-party MMRV (measure, monitor, report and verify) providers. This documentation is subject to annual third-party audits that track carbon emissions reductions and removals within the agriculture supply shed at scale.”
