Frequently asked questions.
Below you’ll find answers to the questions we get asked the most.
General
Fundamentally, carbon farming involves managing land to drawdown carbon out of the air and store it in plants and soils. It can also include the adoption of practices that reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
A carbon credit is a financial unit issued to the project owner when one tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalents (CO2-e) is removed from the atmosphere and stored in the trees or soils, or when one tonne of CO2-e is avoided from being emitted.
An ACCU is an Australian Carbon Credit Unit. This is the credit that is issued by the Australian regulating body, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER). These credits are issued on the success of a project report detailing the amount of stored carbon or avoided emissions that were generated.
Yes, carbon credits can be sold to generate additional revenue for your farming operations. Select Carbon has a team that can assist you in various options to monetise your carbon credits. Please contact us for more information.
No. You get to determine how much and which land will be in a project.
Once ACCUs have been issued for your project and received into your Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU) account, they can be sold to a buyer. The transaction involves the transfer of ACCUs from your ANREU account to the buyer’s ANREU account, accompanied by an invoice. The exact timeframe from project registration to the first issuance of ACCUs can vary depending on the approvals required and the type of carbon project methodology. Speak with Select Carbon staff to discuss your particular circumstances.
No. ACCUs can be treated like any financial unit (e.g. a share or cash), and can be held or sold.
There are a number of steps in the process, and Select Carbon takes the time to explain them all to you. The steps include:
- Assess baseline evidence (the conditions and circumstances for the decade before a carbon project commences need to be taken into account)
- Identify and commence new management activities – all carbon projects have a requirement for new activities – something that is not just business as usual.
- Consent from Eligible Interest Holders, who are people or entities identified on your land title.
- Quantify carbon estimation areas – our skilled remote sensing and GIS team complete what we call a ‘stratification’ to classify the different categories of vegetation or land management units on your property.
- Calculate abatement – carbon storage is estimated by a simulation model or direct measurement, depending on the carbon methodology.
- Prepare an Offset Reports – Select Carbon pulls all the information together to demonstrate compliance and to calculate the amount of carbon sequestered on your property according to the relevant project methodology (typically once a year, but this can vary).
- All projects are audited by third-party, accredited auditors
The Clean Energy Regulator assesses the Offset Reports and audit reports and, when completed successfully, issues ACCUs
Projects
There is no set fee that the landholder is required to pay. The landholder is required to undertake the management activity they choose under the method. For example, the landholder will be required to cover the costs associated with feral animal management such as setting up and maintaining goat traps or upgrading fencing. Likewise, if the landholder chooses the activity Controlling the timing and extent of grazing, they will be required to meet the costs commonly associated with this activity, such as the movement of livestock in rotational grazing, deployment of Rangelands Self Herding, , new or upgraded of fencing, new or upgraded watering points and record keeping. Other overhead costs include maintenance of firebreaks and fence lines.
No. On the contrary, Select Carbon works with you to find ways that increasing carbon storage on your property fits as a complementary activity to your current or planned agricultural business.
Natural events (so-called acts of god) are unavoidable and you will not be liable for any short term losses of carbon, if there is no negligence involved. In the event of a fire that leads ot a loss of carbon stocks within Carbon Estimation Areas (CEA), Select Carbon will re-stratify (cut out) the fire-affected area so that you aren’t receiving carbon credits from areas that have been impacted until those areas have regenerated to the condition before the fire occurred. At this point, you can start to receive carbon credits from those affected areas again.
Select Carbon has a rigorous monitoring program which includes the use of remote sensing, and on-ground field plots. Our monitoring, in combination with a close working relationship with you as the land manager, allows us to have a very good understanding of what’s really happening.
Select Carbon creates its own in-house data to analyse remotely sensed (satellite) data and other relevant data sets to accurately classify the landscape according to the particular requirements of each methodology. Although properties may be many thousands of hectares in size, our assessments are made at the 0.2 ha scale.
If you would like to find out how many ACCUs you could be eligible to generate on your property, please speak with one of our staff. After discussions to learn more about the most relevant methodology for your situation, we can than prepare a detailed feasibility.
Carbon projects are registered under a 25-year or 100-year ‘permanence’ period. This means the carbon must be maintained for the nominated period after the first issuance of carbon credits to the project. In most cases, a 25-year project is the most suitable.
The main commitment over this time is maintaining an agricultural system that does not lead to a loss of the carbon stores.
The short answer is yes. But there are practical considerations that differ between carbon methodologies that we can discuss with you in depth.
For most carbon projects, your main cost is the management practices you agree to undertake to increase the carbon stores in vegetation or soil. However, remember that these management activities can also improve the profitability or reduce the risks of your underlying agricultural business. You may also choose to seek your own advice from your accountant, solicitor or farm advisor and, if so, that is it at your cost. But the other project costs are covered by Select Carbon as part of our service.
No new credits can be issued until the previous high point in carbon is exceeded. This approach includes losses in carbon attributed to natural disasters such as bushfire or drought.