Isometric today announced the certification of its Improved Soil Management Protocol, setting a new standard for certifying carbon removal from soil. Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon store on Earth, holding nearly 3 trillion tonnes, around three times as much as the atmosphere. Better management of croplands and grasslands could remove up to 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, more than the United Kingdom’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
The protocol sets out how carbon removal and reduction from improved land management is measured, certified, and monitored. It requires carbon removal to be measured through direct soil sampling, alone or combined with validated modeling approaches, with projects accounting for all associated greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol also holds projects to strict environmental and social safeguards, including a minimum 20% revenue share for enrolled landowners.
“Soil has enormous potential as a climate solution, and quality is the way to unlock it. When buyers can trust what they’re paying for, demand and investment follow. That’s why Isometric set out to raise the bar for soil carbon, to increase demand and to help this pathway scale,” said Stacy Kauk, Chief Science Officer of Isometric.
Certify, Isometric’s certification platform, supports every soil project using the protocol. Its AI agents work alongside project developers and the independent verifiers who audit each project, taking on the data-intensive steps to make certification faster and more accurate.
Three leading project developers have already registered to generate carbon removal certificates under the protocol. Great Yellow is making landscape regeneration investable across the UK, with a portfolio spanning more than 300,000 hectares; Cultivo is regenerating US grasslands at scale, with more than 1,500,000 acres / 600,000 hectares contracted so far (roughly the size of the state of Delaware) and a financing partnership with Octopus Energy Generation to deploy up to $100 million into Cultivo’s projects; and HGX is working with more than 1,000 farmers across the US to restore soil health and sequester carbon across 3 million acres of farmland.
Ed Dick, CEO of Great Yellow, said: “Soil carbon has real potential, but buyers have been cautious for good reason. The standards haven’t always allowed for projects to scale at the rate needed to make this a credible business investment. Isometric’s new protocol changes this, and as one of the first development partners, Great Yellow can now bring credible soil carbon credits to market, and fast.”
Dr. Manuel Piñuela, Cultivo CEO & Co-Founder, said: “Grasslands cover 40% of the Earth’s land and store 34% of the world’s terrestrial carbon. Isometric’s Improved Soil Management Protocol provides a vital trust layer buyers need to confidently commit to soil carbon removal as a dual solution for corporate offsetting and supply chain insetting. We look forward to partnering with Isometric to scale this protocol with predictable and timely credit issuances by leveraging excellence in science, land management, and both ground truthed and remote data collection, to continue raising the bar for soil carbon.”
Radhika Moolgavkar, VP of Product at HGX, said: “Soil carbon has enormous potential, but realizing that potential requires scientific rigor that buyers can trust. Isometric’s approach helps move the market in that direction. We’re proud to be among the first project developers participating and to represent more than 1,000 growers managing over 3 million acres who are demonstrating that soil can be a scalable climate solution.”
ENDS
About Isometric
Isometric is the agentic certification platform for the industrial economy. Its AI agents work alongside human verifiers, reviewing every data point so expert judgment is freed for the calls that matter, in place of the slow, manual reviews that have defined certification for decades.
From carbon removal and superpollutant reduction to low-carbon energy, fuels, and materials, Isometric brings them all onto a single platform. Trusted by Microsoft, Anglo American, JPMorganChase, and Boeing, Isometric is the largest certifier of carbon removal by contracted volume and fully accredited by ICVCM, ICROA, and CORSIA.
Media contact: Cai Green, cai.green@isometric.com
About Great Yellow
Great Yellow makes landscape regeneration investable and scalable. Founded in 2023, we work with leading nature recovery projects to align project delivery, capital investment, and routes to market, unlocking long-term value for land, investors, and the economy. By connecting capital, trade, data and delivery into our end-to-end ecosystem, we accelerate landscape-scale regeneration while helping organisations build resilience, manage climate and nature risk, and engage with natural capital markets with confidence. Great Yellow worked with the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster CIC to develop the financial model, commercial framework and governance structures to make the Evenlode Landscape Recovery project investable at scale, for more info on the project and spokespeople click here.
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