A new market has been launched in the UK for high-quality natural capital.
Trinity Natural Capital Markets will begin transactions and trading on 11 January 2022. The company states that the market is aligned with the aspirations and quality principles of the United Nations Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets.
Louisa Knocker is the senior natural capital manager at the company and has said it’s time that farmers and land managers are properly rewarded for the natural capital in their care.
"Natural capital describes the aspects of nature that are all too often overlooked and undervalued – the trees, hedges and ditches, meadows and bird cover, the soil, air and water, and all living things, resources and services that come with them.
Scientific tools
"Through advanced scientific tools such as Trinity AgTech’s software, Sandy, farmers can determine their baseline and credibly measure services such as carbon reductions and biodiversity improvements to add value beyond the end product. Credits are then generated when increasing carbon sequestration or enhancing biodiversity that can be sold through the marketplace.”
Farmers who want to begin to trade in the market will need to develop their carbon footprint baseline and develop a natural capital plan. This information will then be used to generate carbon credits and biodiversity tokens.
Once a baseline is set farmers will have three options on how to sell their natural capital stocks.
Options
The first option is to set your own criteria and a minimum price for bidders. The second is to sell to corporate investors. These investors may set their purchase price and criteria.
The third option is to use the carbon or biodiversity credits to sell to businesses where you already have a relationship such as processors, retailers, other farmers and land.
As farming becomes under more pressure to reduce its carbon footprint markets like this will be important going forward.
SHARING OPTIONS