Three major farm carbon calculators have reached an agreement to work together to support farmers to measure emissions using the most accurate tools possible.
Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit, Cool Farm Alliance Community Interest Company and Agrecalc Ltd have agreed to harmonise the methodologies used in calculating agriculture's emissions.
The companies, which signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), agreed that the overarching goal should be to reduce emissions from agriculture via "resource efficiency improvements, optimising production practices and mitigating environmental impacts".
The group is open to other calculators joining the coalition, so long as they publicly provide transparency in their calculator methodologies.
Liz Bowles, Farm Carbon Toolkit CEO, said: “We are not seeking to reach a point where all three calculators will produce the same answer for any given dataset.
"Rather, we are striving to make it possible for users to fully understand why different calculators produce different answers.
“We plan to align with the Science-Based Targets initiative Forestry Land and Agriculture Guidance (SBTi FLAG) and draft Greenhouse Gas Protocol Land Sector Removals Guidance (GHGp LSRG) through our collaborative actions.
"This commitment underscores our dedication to maintaining high-quality standards and ensuring environmental sustainability in our operations, and in calculation outputs.”
The calculators are seeking that this joint work become the “agreed way” and at some point, become a minimum required standard for all calculators to adopt.
The companies said they will engage in consultations with Defra and devolved governments to reach "a practical and realistic form of ongoing validation of their harmonisation work".
Scott Davies, Agrecalc CEO, said that the companies will agree on a common set of data sources which all three calculators will use.
"All calculators can go beyond these baseline requirements, and all parties to this MOU will retain their commercial independence," he explained.
"We will also involve the relevant government and other organisations’ teams with our work plan as we develop it.
“This collaborative approach supports a joint understanding of industry requirements and advancing consistency in our tools and methodologies.
"Our goal is collaboration with industry, trade bodies, and fellow calculator providers in the UK and internationally, so that we can actively contribute to the development of more consistent approaches to on-farm carbon calculation.”
