Sylvera’s ratings assess how closely a project’s claimed carbon impact matches its real-world impact, helping buyers compare credits across different standards and methodologies. A pre-issuance ‘A’ rating indicates the project is high integrity and has a high likelihood to scale. Agroforestry integrates trees and shrubs into farming landscapes, helping the tribal farmers in the project areas to improve the productivity and resilience of their land while creating environmental and economic benefits.  

The Swiftgreen project is developed by India-based climate company Equilibrium and backed by Australia’s largest environmental projects developer, GreenCollar. Swiftgreen is Equilibrium’s second project to be assigned a Sylvera ‘A’ rating. The project brings together Equilibrium’s on-ground restoration and tech capabilities with support and environmental markets experience from GreenCollar.  

The Swiftgreen project spans the 5 Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra and goes beyond carbon. The project works directly with tribal farmers to plant at least 6 different native and mixed-use species of trees and bamboo to transform unused and underutilized land into productive and biologically diverse agroforestry systems. The planting interventions are designed to improve soil health, improve fodder availability for livestock, and generate long-term livelihood opportunities for farming households while promoting environmental sustainability and climate resilience. Participating farmers retain full ownership of everything grown on their land, with intercrop, fruit, bamboo and timber plantations designed to generate income over time. The project further supports alternative livelihoods such as sewing, poultry and goat rearing.

Two IUCN-listed species serve as ecological benchmarks for the restoration efforts: Safed Musli, a critically endangered medicinal herb that is being cultivated to reduce pressure on declining wild populations, and the Green Munia, a vulnerable native bird whose habitat is being enhanced through the establishment of dense native bamboo plantations. 

The project uses Equilibrium’s GeoAI dMRV system which combines field data, GIS and satellite imagery to track farmers, plots and planting events. The system checks satellite data from multiple sources and flags unusual or overlapping plots for a team member to review. Each project plot is compared against similar, unplanted land nearby to show what would likely have happened without the project. This digital infrastructure was purpose-built by Equilibrium to ensure that every farmer, plot and planting event is verified, geo-referenced and audit-ready.

Swiftgreen is expected to involve 18,000 farmers and plant 11.8 million trees across 20,000ha to generate approximately 7.1 Mt CO2e of Verified Carbon Unit (VCU) removal credits. Farmers benefit from increased income from the agroforestry plots and will receive a percentage of the net carbon credit revenue generated by the project. 

Sylvera Ratings are statements of opinion and not statements of fact, investment or financial advice, endorsements or recommendations to take or not take a particular action. Sylvera expressly disclaims all warranties and liability. Refer to the Ratings Disclaimer at www.sylvera.com for more information.

Media contacts:

Equilibrium (India): Rishma Saha, +91 98745 37491 or rishma@equilibriumearth.com

GreenCollar (Australia): Brinsley Marlay +61 412 084 015 or Media@greencollar.com.au

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The first Reef Credit project to tackle fine sediment pollution

The first gully rehabilitation project was implemented on 40 hectares by the owners of a property in the Bowen River catchment in north Queensland. The construction phase was completed in mid 2025.

It is the first gully rehabilitation project of its kind in the world using a market-based approach to catchment restoration.

The constructed system prevents fine sediment run-off by employing erosion control techniques which include landforming, improvement in soil condition, installation of engineered controls to halt and slow sediment mobilisation and the stabilisation of soil with native revegetation. Our engineering partner was Verterra Ecological Engineering.

The project was largely made possible because of an agreement with Far North Queensland ports operator, Ports North. Ports North committed to purchasing Reef Credits from the project over three years. This will satisfy part of their approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for their Cairns Shipping Development Project, which is deepening and widening the shipping channel network.

In effect, the amount of prevented sediment represented by the Reef Credits purchased over the three years will offset that produced by the Cairns Shipping Development Project.

At the same time, after covering the construction costs put up by GreenCollar, proceeds from the sale will go to the landholder.

The successful implementation of this project has already provided confidence in the Reef Credit market: a number of other land managers are now in the planning stages of gully projects.

As these projects scale and expand, more and more erosion gullies will be remediated, preventing significant amounts of fine sediment from entering the catchment areas which flow into the Great Barrier Reef.

At the same time, improvements in land management are helping to improve the bottom line for the agriculturalists taking on these projects.

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Figure 1: Current spatial distribution of different carbon farming projects across Australia under the ACCU (Australian Carbon Credit Unit) Scheme. Project areas represent project boundaries with colours indicating different vegetation and agricultural methods [Protecting existing forest – Avoided Clearing (AC) & Deforestation (AD); Managed forest and harvesting (Forestry); Assisted regeneration of native forests – (Human-induced Regeneration (HIR) and Native Forest from managed regrowth (NFMR)); Planting native forest – Rapid Environmental Plantings (REP); Soil Carbon; and Savanna Burning (SVB)].

Grazing behaviour changes in response to the availability of water

The distance livestock, native and feral animals have to travel to water will influence where they graze.

Waterpoints act as a focal point for animals, so grazing impact will be greatest close to water and decrease with distance from water.

This zone of impact is referred to as the ‘piosphere’.

The size of a paddock, the number of water points and dietary preferences will alter or distort the pattern of grazing.

Merino sheep and goats will graze within 3 km of a water source.

Cattle can graze up to 5 to 10 km from water.

However, most of the time, grazing takes place close to water.

For example, cattle will spend 80 – 90% of their time grazing within 2–3 km from water.

Figure 2: An illustration depicting an example of a piosphere.

Figure 3: Herbivores will select feed from ‘pools’ in turn, starting with the best that is on offer. The sequence in which they consume feed will depend on the herbivore type. When feed is abundant, herbivores will exercise their greatest diet selectivity and therefore diets will diverge. Diets will start to converge as feed declines and then diverge again at very low levels of available pasture.

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The 40 hectare project is significant, not only for being the first of its kind to be implemented under Queensland’s Reef Credits Scheme, but because of an innovative agreement with Far North Queensland ports operator, Ports North. Ports North has committed to purchasing Reef Credits generated by the project over time to mitigate the impact of sediment making its way to the reef.

The Reef Credits Scheme incentivises the implementation of land management projects on privately held properties in the Reef’s catchment areas to prevent pollutants entering its waters. The scheme was designed by natural resources bodies, Terrain Wet Tropics and NQ Dry Tropics, environmental markets developer GreenCollar and the Queensland Government, with support and input from the environment sector and local communities.

A Reef Credit, which represents measured amounts of pollutants prevented from reaching the reef, can be sold to investors who wish to make a tangible, reportable contribution to helping the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. The scheme directly remunerates landholders for doing this work and encourages them and others to do more, promoting environmental stewardship.

“The advantage of these projects, which prevent environmental pollutants, such as fine sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), from running into the waters of The Great Barrier Reef, is that the results are measured and independently verified,” said GreenCollar’s Head of Portfolio – Queensland East, Bart Dryden. “This means investors, such as Ports North, can report tangible impacts from their investments in enhancing water quality on the Great Barrier Reef with the confidence that they are traceable and transparent.”

“The Bowen River gully rehabilitation project, which is the first gully rehabilitation project conducted under the scheme, prevents fine sediment run-off by employing scientifically-proven erosion control techniques, which include landforming, soil amelioration, installation of engineered controls to halt and slow sediment mobilisation and the stabilisation of soil with native revegetation,” Mr Dryden said. “It is estimated the project will prevent just under 18 thousand tonnes of fine sediment from entering the Reef’s waters.”

Repairing gullies is a costly but important exercise. Sediment runoff reduces water quality, smothers riverine and reef habitats, and impairs the resilience of aquatic ecosystems in the face of climate change and other stressors. Across catchments in the region, substantial land degradation caused by gully erosion has driven sediment-laden runoff into the Reef’s catchment area, threatening agricultural productivity and native biodiversity in the process. 

“The Bowen River gully rehabilitation project is also notable because it represents a significant next step for investment in this market because organisations seeking to make nature-based financial disclosures and report on real, quantifiable actions they have taken for the environment now have a clear pathway to meet these needs, as well as to contribute to the Queensland Government’s water quality targets,” Mr Dryden said, ”The added benefit is that increasing levels of this type of investment, particularly from the private sector, will help expand the Reef Credit Scheme and allow these quantifiable solutions to develop to the scale required to deliver even greater impact for this massive and iconic ecosystem.”

Ports North CEO, Richard Stevenson, said, “Our purchase of Reef Credits over the coming three years satisfies a critical aspect of our approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for the Cairns Shipping Development Project. After completing works to deepen and widen the shipping channel network, we were able to direct funding to support a local farmer in gully restoration, which will contribute to a measured reduction in fine sediment run-off into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage catchment. 

“It is satisfying to see our investment going directly to reducing the amount of sedimentation reaching our waterways. Ports North is proud to be playing an important role in helping to build market confidence in the Reef Credits Scheme, which we see as a fundamental tool in improving the health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.”

The Bowen River gully rehabilitation project represents a major milestone. It is the first fine sediment reduction project to be formally registered with independent environmental markets administrator, Eco Markets Australia, and will be the first gully rehabilitation project of its kind globally using a market-based approach to catchment restoration.

Before gully rehabilitation.

After. (Photography by Through the Looking Glass Studio)

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Research by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has found that deforestation – the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use such as agriculture, mining, or towns and cities – has resulted in the loss of one third of our planet’s forests since the last ice age, which was 10,000 years ago. This is approximately two billion hectares of forest, an area twice the size of the United States. Yet, the critically important point is that half of this was lost over the last one hundred years. After a peak loss of primary forests in the 1980s, we lost over 300 million hectares, which is almost the size of India, during the 1990s and 2000s, and about 110 million hectares, an area twice the size of Spain, during the 2010s. 

Recognising the critical importance of healthy ecosystems

The environmental impacts of this activity are significant. Firstly, the agriculture, forestry and land-use sectors are responsible for between 13 and 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the associated deforestation is responsible for about half of this.

Secondly, we know that most of the land-based species that have been documented are found in forests. When these species lose their forest, they are often unable to survive in the fragments of forested land left behind. Over the fifty years between 1970 and 2020, WWF found that there was a catastrophic 73 percent decrease in the planet’s monitored wildlife populations, which is a stark indicator of extinction risk. Though not a direct causal link, it is hard not to recognise a correlation.

To keep global warming below 1.5°C, a key goal of the Paris Agreement, the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 22 gigatonnes annually by 2030. Under the Global Biodiversity Framework, countries have also agreed to restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems and conserve 30% of land, waters and seas.

Current assessments have us behind on all these targets. Yet, research by the UN Environment Program found that protecting and restoring forests through nature-based solutions can deliver emission reductions and removals of at least 5 gigatons per year by 2030, and at least 10 gigatons by 2050. And forests, which are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, are one of the best examples of nature-based solutions.

Taking action through nature-based solutions

Distinct from conservation, which is essentially the protection and preservation of biological diversity through setting aside reserves and passing laws, nature-based solutions harness the power of nature to restore and maintain ecosystems in ways that increase their resilience. The underlying idea is that when ecosystems are healthy and well-managed, they provide essential benefits and services to the planet and its inhabitants, including us. Nature-based solutions aim to result in sustainable conservation and climate change mitigation.

All people and organisations are stakeholders in an exchange relationship with nature. We all rely on nature to deliver the services we need to survive and run our businesses and governments. Healthy ecosystems provide us with clean air, water, food, fibre and raw materials for manufacturing and construction, as well as services such as recreation and waste management. Nature-based solutions help provide a mechanism by which we can reimburse nature for these services, rather than simply taking, regardless of the consequences.

GreenCollar began developing, refining and delivering nature-based land management projects, in partnership with landholders in Australia, in 2011. The company’s aim has always been to deliver solutions that can be expanded to scale by attracting private investment so that sustainable conservation is taking place on the vast expanses of privately held land, as well as in reserves. 

Focusing on innovation and best practice, GreenCollar’s scientists and technical team have developed government-approved standards that prescribe the way in which these projects are managed.  Avoided clearing projects prevent carbon stored in standing forests from being released if a landholder were to otherwise act on their permit to clear their land, while human-induced regeneration projects work to create carbon sequestration by regenerating forest landscapes that have been degraded and suppressed by agricultural activity. Both also act to preserve and rehabilitate habitat. NaturePlus® projects manage land to produce measurable improvements in environmental condition, including increases in species. Reef Credits projects change land management activities in reef catchment areas to prevent fine sediment and nitrogen, from intensive fertiliser use, from entering the waters of these fragile ecosystems.  

Investing in measured and verified outcomes

The mechanism by which these projects expand to large scale solutions is through the establishment of environmental markets. GreenCollar’s team is dedicated to innovation and scientific research that drives measurement and verification of the environmental outcomes these projects achieve – there is, after all, no point to this work unless it is delivering real gains to the environment. To this end, the standards require that independent third party experts must verify these measurements before they can be used to generate credits. For example, one tonne of carbon sequestered generates one carbon credit. One kilogram of dissolved inorganic nitrogen prevented from entering a reef generates one Reef Credit.

When organisations purchase these credits for regulatory, nature-related reporting or corporate sustainability purposes, the income to the landholder allows them to assess the viability of running these sorts of projects against conventional agricultural activities. Whereas, under a regulatory approach to conservation, landholders may simply have been required to cease agricultural activity on the land with no reparation. These nature-based projects therefore generate an incentive. Similarly, in countries such as Malawi, income from GreenCollar’s carbon projects not only result in the sequestration of carbon, but educate and incentivise behaviour change among villagers to, for example, cease harvesting native trees for firewood, in favour of having the income to pursue more sustainable practice. An increase in native trees both increases carbon sequestration and increases stocks of these rapidly dwindling species.

The power to drive desperately needed change

Changing the way we use our land is not only the responsibility of those charged with its direct management. Organisational stakeholders that rely on the services our environment provides throughout their supply chains have the power to significantly influence its restoration and sustainable conservation through considered investments in high quality projects dedicated to valuing and repairing vital ecosystems. In this manner, these stakeholders are encouraging concrete steps to reverse the extinction crisis and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The bottom line is that world economies need to place value on the environment.

This article was published on the AP News website on 25 September 2025.

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Key points – GreenCollar:

• exists to achieve measurable and independently verifiable conservation outcomes at scale;
• wholeheartedly supports government reforms that encourage voluntary climate mitigation, emissions reduction and conservation action;
• is responding directly to the misguided notion that carbon credits are, as offsets, propping up the fossil fuel industry;
• is continuing our own voluntary initiatives to measure and offset our own organisational emissions
• has decided not to pursue Climate Active certification for our own emissions under the current form of the program while continuing to support our clients who choose to utilise its certification.

GreenCollar is dedicated to achieving conservation outcomes at scale

GreenCollar was established in 2011 with the aim of establishing land sector solutions to conservation that could be replicated and expanded at scale. Our objective was to work in partnership with landholders to establish land management projects on the vast expanses of privately held land outside national parks and world heritage areas that would result in preservation and regeneration of native vegetation. Such an outcome would deliver preserved and restored habitats, ecosystems and species populations.

The mechanism whereby investment could be attracted to these projects was through the quantification of scientifically measured and independently verified outcomes so they could generate a credit that could be traded to investors (predominantly private) on environmental markets.  

The policy and political infrastructure that was implemented by the Australian Government at the time supported carbon projects and credits. So the first environmental market to be established was a carbon market. 

Carbon projects employ methodologies that abate and sequester carbon, producing an ACCU. However, the  benefits of these projects go beyond simply climate – the regeneration and preservation of native vegetation is regenerating and preserving habitat, ecosystems and species – the objective GreenCollar set out to achieve.

Under this regulatory regime, carbon credits could be utilised by heavy polluters, including fossil fuel companies, to offset the emissions they could not avoid by working to decarbonise their own operations and supply chains.

The critical distinction here is that GreenCollar was and is in the business of partnering with landholders to generate environmental credits as a conservation investment mechanism. Under the Australian Government’s regulatory framework, one of the ways carbon credits can be used is as an offset for emissions by large industrial facilities, including fossil fuel companies. They can also be used for voluntary purposes, such as in an organisation’s ESG frameworks.

Offsets are only one use for a carbon credit. 

The reality is that it would be impossible to produce enough carbon credits for these large emitters, including fossil fuel companies, to avoid decarbonising and continue their operations at present or historical levels.

GreenCollar fully supports the phase out of fossil fuels.

Attacks on the use of carbon credits as offsets = a green sector ‘own goal’

There are a small group of well funded critics that do not support the use of offsets for this purpose. 

They have campaigned heavily and consistently on this subject.

In the process they have sought to demonise carbon credits and ACCUs in general.

This is despite their intended purpose – the extremely valuable roles they play, and can play as they scale, in harnessing the power of the land sector to reduce emissions and assist in the regeneration and protection of habitat, ecosystems and species across the country.

It is also despite a wealth of scientific evidence and independent reviews that continue to demonstrate that the ACCU system works and is robust in nature.

GreenCollar’s view is that this is an ‘own goal’ for the green sector in our country because it is damaging the reputation of this mechanism and thus, its ability to grow and have the opportunity to deliver the critical conservation outcomes for which it was designed.

It is also damaging the reputations of landholders that have made sincere investments and undertaken substantial risk to mount these long term projects, the companies that work with them to develop these projects and the methodologies under which they are conducted, organisations that voluntarily use credits for ESG purposes,  the scientific community that conducts the research that underpins this work and works to maintain its integrity, and the policy sector that also researches, interrogates and helps shape these approaches.

But most of all, it has grave potential to damage our environment in the long run – because there are precious few other options that can deliver. Though an absolutely critical tool in our conservation arsenal, simple lone reliance on passing legislation to protect the environment, ecosystems and individual species has proven time and time again to be insufficient.

Collateral damage – Climate Active

In GreenCollar’s view, such campaigning has substantially negatively impacted the ability of the Australian Government’s Climate Active initiative to effectively deliver on its objectives and therefore to effectively function in its current form. 

As carbon offsets are a key feature of the Climate Active program, it has been significantly negatively impacted and tarnished, by the activities of these campaigns, as an exercise in greenwashing.

That said, GreenCollar  sees strong value in a government-sanctioned certification program of this nature to continue in the Australian market and strongly supports moves to reform and update Climate Active. 

However, given the level of criticism described above GreenCollar has made the corporate decision to cease pursuing certification under the program. GreenCollar will nevertheless continue to undertake all the activities required under the program for our own internal purposes, such as calculating our carbon footprint and retiring credits accordingly. We encourage other organisations to understand their own carbon footprints, minimise them and use carbon offsets for their residual emissions. If they choose to purchase GreenCollar credits and use the ClimateActive program to certify these activities, we will continue to support them to do so.

END

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