Carbon markets hold enormous potential for biosolids and other residuals. When farmers use fewer synthetic fertilizers and more biosolids, or wood ash instead of lime, they not only avoid significant greenhouse gas emissions, but they also rebuild depleted soil organic carbon. These changes offset emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). In addition to a need to offset GHG from ubiquitous modern sources including agriculture and wastewater treatment, there is growing global demand for the commodification of these climate-change-mitigating activities into carbon credits, which can be purchased by big GHG emitters looking to cut down their net footprints without changing their practices. 

Currently, myriad barriers deter farmers from getting paid through a carbon market to use biosolids and residuals. But, seeing the huge global potential, NEBRA member LP Consulting, based in Canada, is chipping away at those barriers. In November, Ron Coles, senior project specialist at LP Consulting and a member of NEBRA’s Carbon Trading Committee, gave a presentation to the committee about what LP is doing to increase carbon-market access for farmers and producers of “waste resources.” A large new project by LP, described later in this article, integrates outputs from NEBRA’s Biosolids Emissions Assessment Model (BEAM). 

“There’s getting to be a high demand for these credits,” Coles said. He explained that the increase in demand is largely driven by regulations, such as the European Union’s new carbon border tax, called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Under the border tax, he said, by 2030 all imports to the EU will need a certification report of their embedded GHGs. In response to the EU border tax and other pressures, many companies are looking at their supply chains to find “insetting” opportunities where a change in practices, such as using biosolids instead of synthetic fertilizers, would cut down on the GHG associated with their products. Other companies are increasingly purchasing agricultural carbon credits to offset their GHG emissions.

A big part of what LP does, Coles said, is identifying the agricultural value and safety of residuals, to be able to facilitate their use on farms. “We work with a lot of industry across Canada looking at their waste resources, seeing if we can help them modify production or the resource to fit into agriculture,” Coles said. Then LP works with residuals generators and farmers to get residuals onto farms and into use. “Essentially if we get an industry making a good product, we will take it from there: we’ll work with them on getting regulatory approvals, we’ll find the farms, we’ll book the truckers, we’ll work with the farmers on any concerns, application rates et cetera,” he said.

Currently, translating a climate-friendly agricultural practice into a tradable carbon credit is challenging and time consuming. But LP is working to change that. Coles explained that it’s not like putting up a solar panel and measuring the energy produced. “Farms are living entities and they change practices year to year,” he said. 

Right now, verification involves a lot of data collection by farmers, which creates barriers in terms of both cost and time. In a major new initiative, LP is developing a software platform to streamline the processes by which on-farm data are collected and the data’s credibility will be ISO verified. The platform, called Carbon Cropping, will use professionally created carbon nutrient management plans focused on fertilizer emission reductions as well as other GHG reducing practices. On-farm soil sampling will be an integral part of planning emission reductions. Carbon Cropping will also use satellite and drone imaging for such purposes as verifying crop rotations. Notably, it will incorporate outputs from NEBRA’s Biosolids Emissions Assessment Model (BEAM). “Inside most of the models we work with, like Agricultural Canada’s Holos 4, there is no input area for a soil amendment,” Coles said, “There’s not enough farmers using them to justify modifying the model software. So, we’re using the information we’re getting out of our BEAM model calculations to feed into that model,” he said. 

Throughout his presentation, Coles emphasized the growing demand for residuals for agricultural carbon credits, citing five-year wait lists for soil amendments from all the municipal sewage treatment facilities from which LP distributes. Coles also mentioned a recent LP study, which he elaborated on in a follow up email. Coles said the study involved: “Reviewing all industry in New Brunswick producing a waste residual; determining if the residual was safe and suitable for use in agriculture; meeting with industry to sample the residual and review its potential; determining the fertilizer, lime, and organic matter equivalence value of the residual; advising on pathways to obtaining land application approvals and calculating the value of the residual to farmers; and presenting findings to government, farmers and industry.”  Coles said the study found that there was up to $77 million annually in fertilizer and lime value in New Brunswick residuals suitable for agriculture, compared with the $78 million value, in 2023, of purchased synthetic fertilizer brought into New Brunswick.

Coles closed his presentation on an optimistic note: “Honestly in this part of the world, after the work we’ve done for biosolids, if every city put in a plant, we could sell their product.”

Resources

●     Full presentation by Ron Coles to NEBRA’s Carbon Trading Committee

●     NEBRA’s Biosolids Emissions Assessment Model (BEAM)

●     Fertilizers and Climate Change, an explainer by MIT