A jump in the number of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions calculators has made it difficult to decide which to use when estimating a farm’s carbon footprint.

A carbon or GHG footprint is the amount of GHGs emitted minus the amount of carbon stored, for example, by a farm,  a region or a country.

There is no government mandate to know your carbon footprint, but increasingly financial lenders, supply chain companies  and domestic and international markets are asking growers to understand and report their GHG emissions.

GRDC sustainability manager Dr Mark Callow says growers, like much  of agriculture, are under increasing pressure to understand their carbon footprint and  take action to reduce on-farm emissions.

“We know carbon accounting can be confusing and complex, so GRDC has been keen to ensure that growers and agriculture more broadly have access to simple, time‑saving, scientifically robust tools that allow them to understand their carbon footprint and make informed decisions around reducing emissions,” Dr Callow says.

“For these reasons, GRDC has invested – alongside other research and development corporations – in a first-of-its-kind Environmental Accounting Platform (EAP) that enables the calculation of a carbon footprint at a commodity, enterprise and whole-of-business level using a standardised approach across different commodities.

“The EAP can be used in mixed enterprises, so if you have wheat and cattle or wheat and sheep, you can use this tool to calculate your GHG emissions easily and accurately.”

Dr Callow says the EAP tool will play a pivotal role in ensuring growers have the data needed to inform decision-making, identify opportunities for capturing value,  and support the increasing reporting requirements in this space.

Agricultural Innovation Australia (AIA), a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates collaboration and investment in cross-sectoral challenges, developed the EAP tool.

AIA’s chief executive officer, Sam Brown, says GRDC championed the project and provided significant support during the discovery phase.

He says more than 100 mixed farmers were interviewed for the initiative, with many saying that calculating a carbon footprint was confusing and time-consuming.

“We found growers were concerned whether calculators were standardised and up to date,” he says.

“We needed a set of calculators widely developed for and under Australian conditions, and we found these with the Greenhouse Accounting Framework (GAF) tools developed by the Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre (PICCC) at the University of Melbourne.”

In February, AIA launched the EAP to enable growers to baseline their businesses and create a scenario plan to support decision-making about reducing carbon emission intensities.

When developing the EAP, AIA established a technical advisory panel that includes Professor Richard Eckard of the University  of Melbourne, who leads the PICCC, and three other experts (see technical advisory box) in GHG accounting, emissions reduction, soil carbon management and climate science.

The panel’s role is to advise on relevant emerging research, best practices and potential changes required to the platform to ensure it remains up to date and consistent with the appropriate standards and protocols.

Professor Eckard says the panel also works with the Zero Net Emissions Agriculture Cooperative Research Centre (ZNE-Ag CRC), which has been charged with developing a national standard for GHG emissions reporting requirements.

Standardised tool

Mr Brown says the EAP was created so farm and supply chain participants can integrate with it and build it into their service offerings, saving growers time.

“We wanted to offer a single solution for growers to estimate their GHG emissions regardless of the commodity.”

Previously, calculating an overall GHG emission footprint for a farm with multiple enterprises required using individual commodity-based PICCC GAF tools,  working on separate spreadsheets and  then adding the results together.

“The EAP calculates individual commodity-based and enterprise-wide emissions within the same centralised gold-standard platform.”

Mr Brown says growers can access the platform directly for free via the website or ask their farm management software or service providers if they are integrated with AIA’s EAP.

He says work is already underway on stage two, which would provide calculation frameworks for other big-ticket items such as biodiversity and natural capital.

AIA seeks to comply with the National Farmers’ Federation’s Australian Farm Data Code for data security and management.  This means growers decide to whom data  is disclosed.

Future-proofing

Professor Eckard says many multinational agricultural supply chain companies have already set targets for reduced GHG emissions.

He says these supply chain companies want an average of 30 per cent fewer GHG emissions by 2030 and none by 2050.

“About 70 per cent of agricultural produce is exported through multinational supply chains,” Professor Eckard notes.

“Buyers will be looking at how Australia performs globally when those companies start buying globally to meet their targets.”

Accordingly, he says, knowing your carbon footprint or the GHG emissions per tonne of grain requires a calculator.

GHG emissions calculators have data input pages where items such as fuel, fertiliser, lime and the tonnes of grain produced are added.

“Calculators say, ‘this is how much methane is produced’, ‘this is how much nitrous oxide is emitted’, and ‘this is how many kilograms per hectare of carbon-dioxide equivalents you’re losing’,” he says.

“Those are the numbers that matter and, over time, that’s what the supply chain will ask: ‘What is your emissions intensity?’”

Technical advisory

Members of the technical advisory committee for Agricultural Innovation Australia’s Environmental Accounting Platform include: Dr Annette Cowie, the senior principal climate research scientist at NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development; Dr Dan Zwartz, agriculture sector lead for the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Emissions Reduction Division; Professor Richard Eckard of the Univesity of Melbourne; and Professor Peter Grace from Queensland University of Technology.

More information: Mark Callow, mark.callow@grdc.com.au; Sam Brown, sbrown@aginnovationaustralia.com.au; Richard Eckard, rjeckard@unimelb.edu.au; Agricultural Innovation Australia Environmental Accounting Platform, aiaeap.com