After an article in the Guardian shared their findings that carbon offsets of the world's leading carbon standard are not as promising as was thought - putting organisations that buy the offsets at risk of greenwashing - the voluntary carbon market got a big hit.
Rewards for farmers, forests and investors
Carbon credits based on reliable data, however, can bring rewards for farmers, forests and investors. Reliable and accurate field data can bring even more significant rewards and a higher return on investment when biomass and sequestration are calculated and when it complies with standards. Therefore, data quality can no longer be compromised. It must also be noted that, as remote monitoring has its limits, field monitoring will always be required.
Investing in agroforestry, which increases the amount of carbon sequestered, promotes resilient and sustainable farming practices, generates additional income for communities, and commits to long-term carbon returns.
Data collection challenges
Collecting the trusted data needed to run carbon and agroforestry projects successfully comes with its challenges:
1. High reputation risks and investment failure
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) claims require primary data
- Field audits are often sample-based and biassed
- Low credibility of field data estimates persists due to low accuracy, consistency and harmonisation.
2. High costs of carbon projects
- Carbon projects are expensive
- High measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) costs → Lower net payouts to farmers
- Self-reported field data is not feasible, and investment failures are detected late
3. Land and tree tenure risks
Planting trees is an investment for at least 30 years, often outliving the current users or owners of the land. Moreover, it is usually done in areas where land and tree tenure is generally insecure and at risk of dispossession or felling.
Meridia's solutions
Meridia offers solutions to these challenges, based on years of experience in field data collection and processing for land titling and tree registration in various countries. We are well positioned to support carbon projects to ensure data quality is up to standards and land and tree tenure risks are well understood and mitigated.
We also work closely together with carbon monitoring & certification providers, such as through our strategic partnership with Carbon Space, to unlock higher and more reliable carbon financial mechanisms.
We offer three main solutions to increase your return on investment.
1. Data quality verification
Meridia Verify is a service to perform automated field data verification for all existing data collected on farms, trees, farmer households and communities. This way, you know whether or not you can trust the data used for carbon certification and calculations. In addition, the verification report also supports local parties in improving the execution of fieldwork activities.
2. Data collection technology & capacity
Accurate, consistent, and reliable field data leads to higher carbon measurement and lower MRV (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification) costs. Meridia's Survey technology provides a platform to consistently execute farm and tree data acquisition across countries and programs. Meridia also builds the capacity of your (local) partners on best practice carbon-related data collection, monitoring and management.
3. Tenure risk assessment (land and trees)
Meridia assesses the national and local legislation, reviews existing tenure documentation and completed and planned interventions, and delivers a risk report and recommendations.
