The Soil Carbon Industry Group (SCIG) welcomes the release of the Australian Government’s Periodic Review of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative—Measurement of Soil Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Systems) Methodology Determination 2021 (Soil Carbon Method).
The Review marks an important step for an industry now operating across more than one million hectares of Australian farmland. It confirms the important role for soil carbon under the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme and sets out a practical path for improving the Method and supporting its continued development.
SCIG Co-Chair Chris McCosker commented “This review provides an opportunity for us to build on lessons learned, strengthen confidence in the Method, and ensure soil carbon projects can continue to deliver environmental, economic and productivity benefits for Australian landholders.”
Review Findings and Recommendations
The Review considered whether the current Soil Carbon Method satisfies the ACCU Scheme’s six Offset Integrity Standards (OIS); Additionality, Measurable and verifiable, Eligible carbon abatement, Evidence-based, Project Emissions, and Conservative.
The Review found that the Method meets five of the six Offsets Integrity Standards and made four recommendations to strengthen its compliance with the Conservativeness standard;
- Implement a cap of three (3) tonnes of soil organic carbon (tC) per hectare per year (after method prescribed discounts) – equivalent to approximately 11 ACCUs
- Strengthen sampling and stratification protocols that underpin measurement, project design and assurance.
- Restrict registration of multiple projects on the same landholding
- Report and publish annually on collective project performance to improve data transparency across the industry
SCIG Co-Chair Louisa Kiely commented “Our members’ view is that the proposed cap on ACCU issuance is pragmatic, supports continuity of the method and importantly will not shortchange landholders over the long term.”
Overall, SCIG is supportive of the Review as it recognises important role of soil carbon, the progress of the industry and, above all, the work farmers are doing on the ground.
Industry ready to work with Government
SCIG notes the Review’s call for stronger industry engagement and looks forward to working constructively with Government, regulators and stakeholders to implement the review’s recommendations to ensure the they are practical, proportionate and effective.
SCIG acknowledges the work undertaken by Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Josh Willson; the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), and the many stakeholders who contributed their expertise and practical experience throughout the review process.
About Soil Carbon Projects and the Soil Carbon Industry Group
Soil carbon projects involve increasing soil organic carbon on agricultural land by resolving soil health issues, removing crop or pasture constraints or changing stock density, intensity or duration. Australian Soil Carbon projects offer our landholders significant co-benefits such as increased farm production and drought resilience, while contributing to our emissions reduction goals and generating certified Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).
Media Contact
Chris McCosker
Co-Chair, Soil Carbon Industry Group
Australia’s Soil Carbon Industry: A Decade of Building
Australian soil carbon has just passed one million hectares (1,005,029 ha) of farmland in active projects registered under the ACCU Scheme. That number did not happen overnight. In a single decade, soil carbon has grown from a handful of pioneering projects into a national industry that measures, verifies and rewards the work farmers do to rebuild the productivity, profitability and sustainability of their land.
From a standing start
In 2015 there were just six soil carbon projects registered in Australia. The science was promising but farmer uptake was unknown, and few believed that change in soil organic carbon could be measured reliably and affordably enough to credit at scale. In 2019 that changed: Australian farmers earned the world’s first soil carbon credits issued under a national emissions reduction scheme aligned with the Paris Agreement, a global first.
From those beginnings, the industry has grown to 933 registered soil carbon projects spanning more than one million hectares (1,005,029 ha) across six states. Registrations have grown in every year since.
Every credit has a dual outcome
To date, 438,966 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) have been issued from the 52 soil carbon projects that have reached crediting. Each unit is two outcomes in one. It is a climate outcome: one tonne of carbon dioxide drawn down or avoided. Approximately 439,000 tonnes of CO2-e in total is about a full year of emissions from around 100,000 cars. It is also a farmer outcome: income earned by a landholder who changed how they manage their country, through improved grazing rotations, pasture renovation, retained ground cover and smarter nutrient and water management.
These are active management decisions that turn soil health into measured sequestration, and sequestration into a new line of farm income. These outcomes are tangible: the cumulative result of thousands of on-farm decisions, independently measured and verified.
A national footprint
Soil carbon projects now reach across every mainland state and Tasmania, spanning the country’s major agricultural systems, from grazing land (the majority of projects) to cropping country and the rangelands. Together they represent hundreds of distinct farming businesses.
An industry still in its early chapters
Of the 933 registered projects, only 52 have so far had ACCUs issued against them. The remaining roughly 880 are registered and working through baselining, management and the multi-year measurement cycles that soil carbon requires before credits can be issued. This is the defining feature of the sector today: the overwhelming majority of the resource that has been committed is still ahead of its first crediting event. The hectares are in the ground, the abatement is accumulating, and the bulk of the issuance is still to come.
The investment behind the industry: more than $100 million
Establishing a soil carbon project begins with baselining: the physical soil sampling and laboratory analysis that sets the starting point against which all future change is measured. Industry has directed an estimated $30–40 million into baselining the measured soil carbon asset across the 1,005,029 hectares registered. The range reflects variation in property size, terrain and sampling design, and it is a conservative proxy: it counts baselining alone, before further investment in ongoing monitoring, audit and verification each project carries.
Importantly, this is overwhelmingly private investment by farmers and project developers, made on the strength of a credible, regulated measurement framework.
Government has played it role in lowering cost and raising integrity of soil carbon measurement. The National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge committed $50 million of Commonwealth funding with $12.5 million of industry funding to make soil carbon measurement cheaper and more accurate. That public seed funding helped catalyse the measurement technology and field methods now underpinning private delivery at scale: a return on a targeted public investment, visible in the million hectares and the projects now coming through to crediting.
Taken together, combined public and private investment in the sector now exceeds $100 million.
The decade ahead
The Australian soil carbon industry has moved from proof of concept to national scale. With most registered projects yet to reach first issuance, the next decade is about delivery: converting committed land into credited outcomes for farmers and the climate, on the strength of measurement that keeps getting cheaper and more accurate. That next phase rests on the same foundation as the last. The confidence that drew a decade of investment and data is precisely what will turn it into the next generation of lower-cost, higher-integrity measurement.
Sources and notes
Sources: Clean Energy Regulator ACCU Scheme Project Register (soil carbon methods, excluding revoked), data to mid-2026. Cost figure indicative, sampling-only basis ($30–40/ha). NSCIC funding: Australian Government (DCCEEW). Car equivalence is indicative: 427,607 t CO₂-e ÷ 4.3 t CO₂/vehicle/year = 100,000 vehicles for one year (avg. Australian passenger vehicle emissions ~4–4.6 t CO₂/yr, Green Vehicle Guide, greenvehicleguide.gov.au).