Advancing Soil
Carbon Science

Our program promotes agricultural management practices that can reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and encourage increased soil organic carbon storage. During each reporting period, we measure, monitor, and model thousands of fields to harvest this new crop. The details of this chapter are to summarize the project, the participating companies and consultants who contributed to the generation of emissions reductions, and who maintains definitive ownership over the carbon credits.

1.1. Relevant Standards
1.2. Summary Description of the Project
1.3. Project Developer
1.4. Other Entities Involved in the Project
1.5. Project Ownership

While climate impacts are the primary focus of the carbon project, it is important that climate benefits do not come at the expense of other environmental metrics. At an operational level, our program must understand participating acres’ land management changes with field-level precision; only then can we ensure climate change mitigation activities enacted as part of our program follow environmental regulations and applicable laws without generating environmental or social harm. Further, our project activities generate co-benefits such as reduced soil erosion, improved water quality, increased rural incomes, and enhanced resilience to extreme weather events. 

2.1. No Net Harm 

2.2. Local Stakeholder Consultation 

2.3. Sustainable Development Impacts of Project Activities 

To qualify for Carbon by Indigo, growers need to implement new land management practice changes that reduce emissions and increase soil organic carbon storage and meet the eligibility requirements of the Soil Enrichment Protocol (SEP). Qualifying practice categories include crop planting and harvesting, tillage and residue management, and nitrogen application. Growers are paid for the net tonnes of carbon sequestered or emissions abated from these practices over a 10-year period, with an option for renewal up to two times for a total potential of 30-years, as defined by the SEP.  

Once the qualifying practice has been established, ongoing monitoring and data collection ensures each field generating credits under Carbon by Indigo adheres to the requirements defined by the SEP. These requirements include reviewing the fields’ historical practices with respect to the current practices to ensure that an accurate and conservative emission reduction can be quantified within the appropriate time periods and geographic locations.  

Credits are defined as permanent if the atmospheric benefits of the emission reductions are protected by the GHG crediting program for the equivalent of 100 years. This is achieved through both the protection of the physical carbon storage within the project area and programmatic safeguards to compensate the system for any potential reversals. To ensure the permanence of carbon stored in the soil Indigo employs a combination of remote and on-site data collection, registry-held internal buffer pool (insurance against “natural catastrophes”), compensation obligations, vested payment schedules, net basis accounting, reversal reporting, and internal mechanisms (e.g., an internal buffer pool). 

3.1 Project Definition 

3.3 Project Location 

3.4 Project Start Date 

3.5 Project Crediting Period 

3.6 Reporting Period 

3.7 Defining Baseline Scenarios 

3.8 Additionality 

3.9 Permanence 

3.10 Regulator Compliance 

The greenhouse gas assessment boundary defines the sources, sinks, and reservoirs (SSRs) of GHGs affected by the project activities. Carbon by Indigo focuses primarily on the soil organic carbon impacts, as well as significant changes to emissions of N2O and CH4. This chapter details which SSRs are included within the project boundary, and the methods used for monitoring and quantification of each SSR during the reporting period.

When seeking to scale the crediting of real climate impact, scientifically defensible and operationally feasible quantification is key. This chapter describes in detail the methods used to quantify greenhouse gas emission reductions and removals, including the use of direct soil measurement, default equations, and biogeochemical modeling. 

As this is an aggregated project, the method of quantification leverages a sample-based approach where a subset of the project fields are directly measured and modeled to quantify the emission reductions and soil organic carbon sequestration. The results of the models and default equations attribute an average emission reduction per acre to groupings of fields in the project based on agronomic and geographic characteristics via stratification. Furthermore, assessments such as leakage are conducted to ensure the emission reductions generated in the project were solely due to the implementation of a qualifying practice defined in Chapter 3. Within each quantification step, Indigo ensures conservativeness is strictly applied in alignment with the international standards for environmental accounting (ex. ISO 14064-2).  

5.1 Quantification Approaches Applied 

5.3 Modeling Baseline Scenarios 

5.4 Results of Quantification 

5.5 Leakage 

Indigo employs detailed monitoring and data collection to ensure the high-quality quantification of reductions and removals. The basis of this chapter describes how we ensure scientific rigor and data scrutiny along the carbon crediting process. 

Soil sample collection is part of the data gathering process and is specific to the sampling depth, procurement and handling methods, composite sampling methods, sanitation requirements, and shipping standard operation procedures. Data collected from these soil samples are used as model inputs, supporting model calibration and validation across practice categories, crop functional groups, and emission source combinations.  

Further quality control processes are conducted to ensure grower data completeness and confidence and to facilitate evidence review, confirmation, and grower outreach and follow-up as needed. An overview of data processing, data sources, and the importance and enabling of auditing, data provenance, and reproducibility are detailed in this chapter.

We are planning to monitor and account for potential reversals across the project during the permanence period. The efforts to collect data and estimate CRTs at the project level for growers in the program are covered in other sections throughout the monitoring plan, including, but not limited to, subsection 6.2.1 Data Collection from growers above. 

6.1 Data and Parameters Used 

6.1.1 Infrastructure and Tools 

6.1.2 Data and Parameters 

6.2 Data Collection and Data Sources 

6.3 Field Boundaries 

6.4 Soil Sampling 

6.5 Use of Models 

6.6 Ongoing Monitoring 

6.7 Data Handling, QA/QC, and Processing  

Due to the level of complexity of the project, there are often supporting materials that are provided with a monitoring plan to better describe the operations of the project and how we were able to accommodate the requirements outlined in the SEP. For example, in Chapter 6 our team provides a general description of the internal QA/QC that is conducted to ensure the data flowing through the program are accurate and approved for credit generation. To support this summary, a supporting document provides details of the specific logic implemented in the software to flag issues, request reviews, and pass the data for credit generation.  

Creating agricultural carbon credits is complex and requires a significant amount of coordination between growers, data collection systems, quantification methods, and GHG crediting programs, which in turn makes them unique. With the scaled implementation of practices that “farm carbon,” we have an opportunity to replenish an overly depleted carbon sink while realizing ecosystem benefits, such as healthier soils, increased biodiversity, and resilience to extreme weather events. 

If this overview of our monitoring report should spark curiosity in Carbon by Indigo, please reach out to join on the collaboration and dialogue around this significant nature-based climate solution. Download a PDF version.