Measure, model, and mitigate carbon emissions and deforestation with Carble.
You can either upload your GPS locations in our customer platform, or share the files directly with your contacts at Carble. We can accept the most commonly used data formats, like GeoJSON, KML and KMZ.
Sure, we are happy to take a look at your data. Just drop us a message!
Emissions and removals are calculated based on the fluctuations in above-ground biomass within individual farm boundaries. We calculate fluctuations in below-ground biomass based on root-to-shoot ratios from peer-reviewed academic sources. Based on the fluctuations in the relevant carbon pools we calculate emissions and removals, which are reported separately.
The GHG Protocol Land Sector & Removals Guidance requires companies to report on four carbon pools: above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, dead organic matter and soil organic carbon. Carble provides direct measurements of above-ground biomass and extrapolates below-ground biomass using a root-to-shoot ratio from peer reviewed academic sources. We can include DOM and SOC using a model-based approach, also based on academic sources.
Our measurements can be trained on supply-chain-specific field measurements, but for all regions we have calibrated training data available. It is however a requirement under the GHG Protocol Land Sector & Removals guidance to collect a limited number of field measurements when reporting carbon removals.
We always calculate emissions for the past 20+ years, since emissions from land-use change need to be accounted for during a period of 20 years after the event (often with a linear discount applied).
Land-use Change emissions take place when the primary use of an area turns from forest into agriculture. The land-management emissions and removals we report take place when tree cover in an agroforestry plantation decreases over time. Since land-use change needs to be reported differently from land management, we can identify the year a land-use change event took place and report the resulting emissions separately.
After calculating emissions and removals for the past 20 years, we identify hotspots where carbon is ‘at risk’ in your supply chain: areas that have high tree cover in areas where we have seen high tree cover loss. We estimate annual tree cover loss and the potential emissions this may result in every year. Additionally, we identify hotspots with low or no remaining tree cover, that may be suitable for tree-planting projects.
Payments to farmers are calculated using Carble’s “Methodology for rewarding carbon storage in shade-grown commodities”, which can be found on our Methodology-page.
We always split up our work into three steps: Measure, Model, and Mitigate. Some of our customers are only interested in the (historic) measurements, whereas others want to model potential payments or report actual payments for mitigation efforts. While we make all features available to our customers (depending on the subscription plan), there is no obligation to execute payments.
We have built both our measurements and our mitigation methodology to be compliant with all the currently-known requirements from the GHG Protocol Land Sector & Removals Guidance. Since the guidance is currently still in draft, the final version may include new requirements that are as of yet not in the public domain. Such requirements will be put on our development roadmap with high urgency.
We have built our measurements, modeling, and mitigation methodology to be compliant with all the requirements from the SBTi FLAG guidance. Since the SBTi requires companies to reduce 90-95% of their emissions (including that occur in their value-chain) before neutralizing remaining hard-to-abate emissions using beyond-value-chain removals, our focus on protecting existing tree cover will be one of the most effective levers companies have to meet their SBTi FLAG targets.
We use data from multiple Earth Observation satellite systems, including Landsat, GEDI, ALOS PALSAR, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2, to model and analyze above-ground biomass in various regions around the globe. The choice of these specific satellite systems is based on their spectral capabilities, spatial and temporal resolutions, and availability for the historical 20-year period, which is required for carbon emission reporting.
The uncertainty range of our measurements is always shared with the original data we share. Companies are required to share this uncertainty range in their GHG reporting. Depending on the local conditions (such as cloud cover), the uncertainty range of our measurements is typically 5-10%.
For EUDR compliance, we need to check if a product is grown in an area that was deforested after December 31st, 2020. For this, we first check if the farm polygons overlap the EU Forest Observatory map of forest cover. Since this map often misinterprets coffee and cocoa plantations as forests, we add an additional layer of crop identification data. Finally, since farm polygons sometimes contain forests as well as plantations, we add a third layer that identifies deforestation events after 2020 in areas that were classified as forests.
EUDR compliance statements are available in PDF format and include a GeoJSON file with all the farm locations (pinpoints or polygons) that can be uploaded to the EUDR portal.
