With multiple reports supporting the UN Secretary-General’s warning that we are at “code red” for the environment and humanity, 2022 brought heightened attention and louder calls for increased action and investment to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.  

Following the change of government in May, GreenCollar celebrated Australia’s renewed commitment to stronger climate targets. It is also encouraging to see signs of meaningful pledges to halt extinctions and biodiversity loss domestically and internationally. 

2022 has also been a tough year for many of our project partners and our team.  Just as the pandemic seemed to stabilise, floods devastated huge parts of the country and foot-and-mouth disease presented real and present biosecurity risks for producers, including GreenCollar project partners.  As we step into summer, fire risk is increasing in many areas. 

With characteristic resilience, our project partners, their communities and our team continued to tackle every challenge with collaboration, practicality and action. 

Key highlights of 2022

Looking back at 2022, these are just some of the milestones GreenCollar has celebrated with project partners across Australia: 

• 4.5M+ ACCUs generated in 2022 with more than 33M tonnes of emissions avoided or sequestered by GreenCollar projects since 2011   
• On track to achieve our targets of 150M+ tonnes of CO2e avoided or abated by GreenCollar projects between now and 2040.

On-ground data collection and measurement:  This year, GreenCollar field teams have completed over 1000 field survey plots, collecting hundreds of thousands of data points across multiple locations.  This information has supported 30 independent audits, over 420 offset reports and more than 480 environmental market project assessments.  

Independent ACCU Review:  In September, GreenCollar was pleased to host the independent panel reviewing the carbon crediting framework, led by Professor Ian Chubb, on GreenCollar carbon projects near Cobar NSW. The site visits gave the panel an opportunity to meet landholders and see first-hand the operation of our high quality, science-led carbon projects, including identification and assessment, project design, implementation, data collection and monitoring.  GreenCollar also made two submissions to the independent review, including a joint submission with the Australian National University and University of New South Wales ERF research team. 

With the review due any day, GreenCollar eagerly awaits the panel’s recommendations.  Independent reviews are central to robust regulation. Continuous improvement of governance and methods are critical to maintaining Australia’s position as the most rigorous and highest integrity carbon market in the world.  

No fossil fuel ownership: GreenCollar proudly remains the only major Australian carbon project developer not wholly or partly owned by fossil fuel companies.  This means none of our projects are being developed to support fossil fuel expansions. 

Sale of Credits only where buyers have credible transition plans: In 2022, GreenCollar recommitted to sell credits only to buyers with robust net-zero transition plans in place. We are working with reputable global agencies to ensure we can deliver on this commitment, and details of the policy will be available in early 2023.

Significant sale of Reef Credits:  In October, Qantas announced the largest purchase of GreenCollar Reef Credits by a single buyer to date.  Reef Credits directly contribute to United Nations-endorsed water quality targets which aim to reduce nitrogen, sediment and pesticides flowing to the reef. The purchase by Qantas represents a significant scaling up of long-term corporate investment in actions that make a real difference to the enormous ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef.  

NaturePlus Credit Launch:  In November, GreenCollar launched NaturePlus Credits, generating substantial interest from across Australia and around the world.  NaturePlus provides a much-needed scaleable and scientifically-robust biodiversity credit scheme.  It aims to drive investment into measured outcomes for nature, requiring improvement to be independently audited and then third-party verified under world-leading environmental accounting standard, Accounting for Nature®. 

With 20 pilots underway, the first NaturePlus Credits will issue in early 2023.  This is a significant step and provides a way to build large scale private sector investment into tackling the extinction crisis facing Australia’s precious and threatened wildlife.  Alongside NaturePlus Credits, we are also looking forward to engaging with the Commonwealth as it develops its Nature Repair market.  

Fire prevention:  A cycle of drought-breaking rains has seen substantial growth in vegetation and ground cover in some regions this year. As this can also bring increased fire potential, over the coming weeks, GreenCollar will be in touch with project partners located in regions AFAC has identified as having higher than normal fire risk to discuss implementation of fire risk mitigation strategies.

Tackling plastic waste:  Great progress this year has seen multiple projects in Far North Queensland on track to issue plastic credits in 2023.  Under this program, reduction in plastic waste on banana plantations is measured, reported and third-party verified to create plastic credits under the Verra Plastic Standard. These credits can be sold to investors on a new voluntary market, helping them to address their own plastic footprint. We are also actively expanding projects into Africa and the Asia-Pacific.

Carbon Industry Code of Conduct:  As part of our ongoing obligations as a foundation signatory to the Carbon Industry Code of Conduct, we enclose a copy of the Code of Conduct Fact Sheet for your information. The Carbon Industry Code of Conduct is a voluntary Code that aims to promote market integrity, consumer protection and appropriate interaction with project stakeholders, including Native Title Holders, representative bodies, land managers and project owners.

Looking forward to 2023

After a huge 2022, we are looking forward to 2023 with energy and hope.  Alongside our diverse, hard-working and resilient partners, it’s been a year that has strengthened our resolve to redouble our efforts, tackle challenges head-on and stand firm in our commitment to drive real, positive, measurable environmental impact at scale.   

All the very best for a safe and happy festive season from the The GreenCollar Team. 

The post Delivering for our partners and the environment in 2022 and beyond with our market-leading approach      appeared first on GreenCollar.

The post GreenCollar CEO, James Schultz, addressing discussions about the Australian carbon market appeared first on GreenCollar.

TRANSCRIPT:

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: Last week, the Senate breathed life into the Abbott Government’s Direct Action climate policy, which features a $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund.

It ends months of uncertainty in the wake of the carbon tax being axed. But what does it mean for the Carbon Farming Initiative? How will farmers and Aboriginal communities with existing carbon abatement schemes adapt? And will the new system deliver Australia’s promised 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020?

Sean Murphy reports.

SEAN MURPHY, REPORTER: On his two stations near Cobar in western New South Wales, Peter Yench harvests about 4,000 feral goats a year. At $40 to $50 each, it’s a handy, opportunistic income, but he’s keen to get rid of goats altogether on his combined 53,000 hectares.

PETER YENCH, BALGOO STATION: With the goats, they’re good, they’re feral, they come in off the mountainous country and also your rough country. However, you’ve got to run them up to two years before you can get a decent return. But, by that time, if you run a sheep, you can have two or three lambs and sell them at $80 to $100 each, so, the mathematics just don’t add up. You’re better off getting rid of the goats and running sheep.

SEAN MURPHY: To make his stations free of feral animals and natives, such as kangaroos and emus, Peter Yench has invested heavily in total grazing pressure fencing. It costs $4,000 a kilometre and he’s installed about 40 kilometres so far. It’s expensive work and comes at the same time as he’s been engineering his paddocks to better use his meagre annual rainfall. All this despite two years of drought. He’s done it with money earned from carbon farming.

PETER YENCH: With the carbon farming coming in, that gives you the opportunity to make money out of your harder country and then to reinvest it in better country and make it even better again.

SEAN MURPHY: Peter Yench has pledged to conserve native forest on half of Balgoo Station for the next 100 years. In return, he’s been promised an annual income for the first 20 years.

So after 20 years and when you’re long gone or if you want to sell the property, does the carbon conservation become a liability?

PETER YENCH: No, it certainly doesn’t. And the reason being that you’ve got access to funds for 20 years. If you can’t improve that 25 – 50 per cent of your property in that 20 years to far outweigh the cost, well then you’re not much of a manager. You should be living in town.

SEAN MURPHY: Peter Yench is in a scheme run by the Sydney-based company GreenCollar. It’s owned by barrister Lewis Tyndall and former World Bank consultant James Schultz, who met while working to conserve forests in Indonesia. Their company has written up 95 per cent of Australia’s native forest carbon abatement, most of it in the Western Division.

JAMES SCHULTZ, GREEN COLLAR: What the property owner is obliged to do is not clear land that he would have been otherwise been clearing. It doesn’t mean he can’t continue to graze. In fact we encourage that and we want to see the property managed as a whole of property land management plan, as opposed to locking up country and throwing away the keys.

Our expertise as a company is in how you can extract values from other markets like carbon finance, ecosystem services, biodiversity, watershed management and so we share in any of the revenues that we’re able to generate from those activities.

SEAN MURPHY: The Carbon Farming Initiative, or CFI, evolved under the previous Labor government, where Australia’s 250 biggest polluters were encouraged to buy carbon credits to avoid paying the now-defunct carbon tax. The CFI generated trades worth $160 million over the last four years.

NEWSREADER: The Abbott Government and the Palmer United Party have done a deal on climate change. The $2.5 billion Direct Action plan would pay businesses to reduce their emissions.

SEAN MURPHY: In the Senate last week, the once market-driven system was replaced by Direct Action, a government-funded scheme with a $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund to buy carbon credits over the next four years.

LEWIS TYNDALL, GREEN COLLAR: The difference is that the Government is buying them under a reverse auction process, and before, the polluting companies were paying for them. We need policy certainty and by having the Emission Reduction Fund passed by the senators recently, that gives certainty for us to go ahead. In the future there might be a different kind of carbon price mechanism, but at the moment we’re content that we’ve got certainty and we can go ahead.

SEAN MURPHY: The new system will feature a reverse auction where the lowest privately-tendered bids will win contracts, usually for seven years.

CHLOE MUNRO, CLEAN ENERGY REGULATOR: We expect that we’ll buy at a range of price points. Not all projects will be able to deliver abatement at the lowest possible price, and really all that the benchmark price is doing is saying, “Well above this price we think it will be unreasonable to pay that,” and we’re confident that we’ll be able to get enough abatement below that price for it to be a reasonable discipline on the market.

SEAN MURPHY: Chloe Munro heads the new Clean Energy Regulator. Its benchmark price will not be made public and Ms Munro won’t speculate about how low the carbon price could go. Under the previous system, carbon credits were traded for about $20 a tonne. Some observers fear the new price could go as low as $5 a tonne.

CHLOE MUNRO: So we’ll find that out as the market develops and we certainly don’t have any preconceptions here at the Clean Energy Regulator about what that could be.

SEAN MURPHY: For companies already running projects like native forest protection, the first auction will be early next year.

JAMES SCHULTZ: The important thing for us is it provides a price and your ability to compete in that auction is like any other market that you’re competing in: if you compete on a cost basis, well then you’re going to be able to provide to that market, and if you can’t, you won’t.

Native forest protection projects are actually some of the most cost-competitive projects you have in the context of carbon and the Carbon Farming Initiative. But the important thing for us, the fundamental thing, is that there is actually a price there.

SEAN MURPHY: Uncertainty about how the Emissions Reduction Fund will evolve extends well beyond native forest protection schemes. It’ll also include tree planting, methane capture in piggeries and landfill and controlled burning to prevent major bushfires.

In the north Kimberley, helicopters are helping Aboriginal rangers with their traditional early season fire management. So-called savanna burning generates carbon credits by preventing major bushfires.

NOLAN HUNTER, KIMBERLEY LAND COUNCIL: The idea is that it’s a good program in terms of carbon abatement work that relates to people’s – Indigenous people’s cultural values, doing the work on country. You know, the mix of Western science and cultural-ecological knowledge, combining that. And, you know, it’s a good model, it’s a good fit for what our aspirations are.

SEAN MURPHY: Existing savanna burning projects will be unaffected, but the Kimberley Land Council fears new rules will make it harder for new projects to qualify and that they’re unlikely to be competitive.

NOLAN HUNTER: It means that smaller groups like ours can’t compete because the pricing is accepted by the lowest bidder – reverse auctioning is what it is. And so we’re not that viable in terms of the size of our businesses to compete against the bigger industry groups.

SEAN MURPHY: At risk may be other programs like these rangers at Cone Bay, north of Derby, who rely on the funds generated by the carbon credits.

WARREN BURUNGA, DAMBIMANGARI COMMUNITY: Well the ranger program sort of come about, I guess, concerns of people, visitors on country, the rubbish they leave behind, our rock art, places that are sacred to us. So we found that there’s a need to have a presence out on country to ensure that we’re looking after it in a way that we should be, how our elders have taught us how to look after country. I think that’s one of the biggest needs.

But also employment, building self-esteem – things like that. Getting boys off the streets, you know, and bringing them out to country and showing them – they feel more comfortable when they’re out on country, you know. You see the lights in their eyes, you know.

SEAN MURPHY: Qantas has supported the north Kimberley savanna burning program under its voluntary carbon abatement scheme and it says it will continue to support these projects regardless of any new rules for government-funded carbon credits.

LAURA BERRY, QANTAS: The fact that we can combine a project like this that supports Indigenous communities as well is really an exciting prospect for us. This program is irrespective and will continue irrespective of government policy.

It supports our voluntary carbon offset program. It’s a program that is the largest voluntary offset program for airlines in the world. It’s been going since 2007. We’re really excited about growing and developing that program going forward and giving our customers and our corporate customers the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.

TERRY DUNNE, DOUBLE GATES STATION: This is part of the property. It’s a productive thing on your property – no different than the sheep and the cattle. You’ve got carbon credits – the same as.

SEAN MURPHY: But Terry Dunne may be forced to clear the native forest on his 22,000-hectare station near Cobar because he’s deemed too late to be part of the Emissions Reduction Fund. The Government says farmers have to have lodged a property vegetation plan before July, 2010 to qualify.

TERRY DUNNE: So I’m six months too late. My next door neighbour is of course eligible and a lot of other farmers in Cobar are eligible, but I’m not. And my alternative to this is clearing this country and making it more productive.

SEAN MURPHY: Drought has forced Terry Dunne to send most of his cattle away on agistment, but he reckons a carbon credit income could drought-proof his property and improve it for future generations.

TERRY DUNNE: I’d love to have this property much better for the kids coming along, particularly my own children, which I haven’t been able to afford to bring home. But, yes, I’d really like to see this property improved for the next generation. I think that’s what it’s all about. That’s what farmers are all about.

SEAN MURPHY: The sleeping giant of carbon farming will be coming up with a method for measuring carbon stored in soil. Department of Primary Industries research scientist Dr Cathy Waters has been examining nine sites in western NSW to see what impact better fencing and grazing management has on soil carbon.

CATHY WATERS, DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES NSW: We’ve got the data now to show the changes in management that allow you to control the grazing intensity on the outside, so that’s external grazing pressure from the ferals and native animals, combined with rotational grazing gives you higher amounts of ground cover, perennial ground cover in particular and litter, and that translates directly to increases in soil carbon, in particular in that top first few centimetres of the soil.

SEAN MURPHY: For farmers like Ashley McMurtrie, it’s delivered a huge production bonus.

ASHLEY MCMURTRIE, GILGUNNIA STATION: It’s becoming particularly important now that we’re back in drought. We’ve been in drought for two years. Prior to doing these sorts of things, we would have been in big trouble 12 months ago, whereas now our livestock are all in good condition and we still have six months of feed in front of us, so it’s made a huge difference to the outcome for us.

SEAN MURPHY: For now, farmers like Peter Yench have secured their income from carbon farming, but the jury is out on if the Emissions Reduction Fund will deliver a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. There also remains a faint hope of a return to a market-driven emissions trading scheme with the Government now funding an investigation by the Climate Change Authority.

The post LANDLINE Carbon Farming Initiative appeared first on GreenCollar.

Kristina Stefanova is part-owner of Terra Carbon, which secured a 43 per cent share of the fund by promising to help NSW farmers profit by preserving about 400,000 hectares of farmland.

Terra Carbon is headed by environmentalists Lewis Tyndall and James Schutlz, the husband of Ms Stefanaova. Ms Stefanova, who holds a 25 per cent stake in Terra Carbon, has publicly criticised the government’s climate action policies. And in April, Climate Institute chief executive John Connor described the ERF as “a friendless piece of policy and not many people are standing up to defend it”.

Yesterday he said: “It is good that projects under the Carbon Farming Initiative have come to fruition, but this kind of policy alone is not going to drive the modernisation that is required for Australia’s clunker economy, especially in the electricity sector.”

Mr Connor said he understood Ms Stefanova was not involved in the management of Terra Carbon.

Ms Stefanova directed questions about the company to Mr Schutlz, saying of her shareholding: “We all have to be married to someone.” ​

It is not known how much Terra Carbon will receive for its pledge to reduce emissions but at the average price of $13.95 a tonne it is worth $289m, the vast majority of which will be passed on to landholders. Terra Carbon — a division of GreenCollar Group, which launched almost four years ago with a handful of investors — blitzed­ the $660 million auction, winning 41 of the 107 contracts awarded for projects, mostly clustered around Cobar and Bourke in northwestern NSW. Over 10 years, the Australian-owned company aims to deliver additional income for farmers while providing professional servic­es to help the landowners sequester carbon by fostering native­ plants, rather than clearing the land for pasture.

Mr Schutlz said many of the landowners who volunteered for the scheme had struggled amid years of drought and falling prices for agricultural products at the farm gate. “There is an environmental benefit, an economic benefit and a social benefit,” he said.

“Our whole passion is environmental markets. We want to demonstrate that environmental markets are a viable alternative to business as usual.”

Terra Carbon will test the farms’ progress in sequestering carbon and its “conservative” estim­ates will be independently audited. The company expects to average 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide abatement each year over the next 10 years — equivalent to more than half of the emissions of a coal-fired power plant.

Ms Stefanova is the sole shareholder of Bundaleer Nominees, which acquired a 24.99 per cent stake in Terra Carbon last month for $46,683, according to ASIC records. Ms Stefanova and Mr Schutlz are joint directors of Bundaleer Nominees.

ASIC records indicate that Murray Bleach of Killara, in Sydney’s north, holds another one quarter of Terra Carbon’s ordinary shares, although they are not beneficially held or fully paid.

Another quarter of the shares is owned by Bongalong Holdings, a company jointly owned by Peter William Pryde Salisbury and Theresa Anne Crozier. A further 24.99 per cent is owned by Mr Tyndall and Shirley Tyndall. The remaining shares are owned by Climate Fund.

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