Olive Council Tests Plan to Help Olive Farmers Sell Carbon Credits

Summary

The International Olive Council has launched a Carbon Balance project pilot phase, allow­ing olive grow­ers and stake­hold­ers to par­tic­i­pate until May 30^th. The project aims to assess olive groves as nat­ural car­bon sinks, allow­ing farm­ers to gen­er­ate car­bon cred­its and increase their income while pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able land man­age­ment.

Olive grow­ers, coop­er­a­tives, uni­ver­si­ties and other stake­hold­ers involved in olive cul­ti­va­tion have until May 30^th to par­tic­i­pate in the global Carbon Balance project pilot phase recently launched by the International Olive Council (IOC).

“In the first 24 hours after the appli­ca­tion win­dow opened, we received sub­mis­sions from more than ten coun­tries, cov­er­ing over 1,000 hectares and all plant­ing sys­tems,” said Juan Antonio Polo Palomino, head of the IOC’s Olive Oil Technology and Environment Department.

The project aims to assess olive groves as nat­ural car­bon sinks.

“The Carbon Balance project is key to show­cas­ing the sus­tain­abil­ity of our sec­tor,” added Lhassane Sikaoui, head of the IOC’s Olive Growing, Olive Oil Technology and Environment Unit.

As the ini­tia­tive pro­gresses, farm­ers will be able to increase their incomes by sell­ing car­bon cred­its on vol­un­tary mar­kets.

Carbon cred­its for olive groves are an emerg­ing oppor­tu­nity in sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture.

Olive trees nat­u­rally absorb and store car­bon diox­ide through pho­to­syn­the­sis, and healthy soils — espe­cially those man­aged using regen­er­a­tive prac­tices — can amplify this effect.

According to the IOC, olive groves’ car­bon diox­ide stor­age capac­ity is both sta­ble and long-last­ing.

“Until recently, agri­cul­ture was seen solely as a green­house gas emit­ter,” the IOC said, ref­er­enc­ing the lat­est Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. ​“However, the 2023 IPCC report rec­og­nized its poten­tial to absorb car­bon diox­ide, cre­at­ing new finan­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties for sec­tors like olive grow­ing.” 

By quan­ti­fy­ing the amount of car­bon an olive grove removes from the atmos­phere, farm­ers can gen­er­ate car­bon cred­its that can be sold to com­pa­nies seek­ing to off­set their emis­sions.

This sys­tem pro­vides an addi­tional income stream and pro­motes more sus­tain­able land man­age­ment. However, a clear legal frame­work sup­ported by robust cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ver­i­fi­ca­tion plat­forms is essen­tial to make this sys­tem work.

“During the pilot phase, par­tic­i­pants will be able to cal­cu­late the car­bon bal­ance of their olive grove using a free online tool, receive tech­ni­cal assis­tance, and pro­vide feed­back,” Polo Palomino explained.

“This will help us val­i­date the tool’s usabil­ity and make any nec­es­sary improve­ments based on par­tic­i­pants’ input,” he added.

Once all reg­is­tra­tions are in, the project’s sci­en­tific team will design a broad sam­ple to reflect dif­fer­ent cul­ti­va­tion areas, olive grove types, man­age­ment prac­tices, and cli­mate con­di­tions.

To par­tic­i­pate, farm­ers and coop­er­a­tives must pro­vide data on their agri­cul­tural prac­tices, such as fuel use and fer­til­izer appli­ca­tions.

“Our goal is to make the tool user-friendly, so we designed a sim­ple inter­face using data that farm­ers already man­age daily,” Polo Palomino said. ​“For instance, those who keep a field note­book will already have nearly all the required data.”

Participation in the pilot phase is com­pletely free. This includes the train­ing ses­sion and online tech­ni­cal sup­port pro­vided by the IOC.

“Once val­i­dated and released, the tool will be freely acces­si­ble to any user world­wide,” Polo Palomino said.

The IOC’s car­bon bal­ance cal­cu­la­tor is based on the IPCC’s 2019 General Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

“We adapted it to the spe­cific char­ac­ter­is­tics of olive trees, draw­ing on the best avail­able sci­en­tific knowl­edge and tested mod­els to ensure max­i­mum robust­ness,” Polo Palomino said.

“We also built on the IOC’s pre­vi­ous work, includ­ing the 2018 report on the global CO2 cap­ture poten­tial of olive groves and the first ver­sion of the cal­cu­la­tor pub­lished in 2012,” he added.

Once the car­bon bal­ance is cal­cu­lated, the Verra VM0042 v2.1 stan­dard is applied to gen­er­ate car­bon cred­its.

Verra is one of the lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions cer­ti­fy­ing car­bon cred­its, and VM0042 specif­i­cally focuses on improved agri­cul­tural land man­age­ment.

Version 2.1 out­lines how to mea­sure, mon­i­tor, and ver­ify car­bon seques­tra­tion to ensure sci­en­tific and tech­ni­cal valid­ity.

The process com­plies with European Union Regulation 2024/3012, estab­lish­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion guide­lines for car­bon removals within the E.U.

The pilot phase includes a tech­ni­cal train­ing ses­sion in June. ​“The ses­sion will explain in detail the flow of a vol­un­tary car­bon credit project, the cri­te­ria used in this method­ol­ogy, and the tool itself through prac­ti­cal exam­ples,” Polo Palomino said.

“We aim to ensure that par­tic­i­pants can begin work­ing with the tool right after the ses­sion,” he added.

The next phase is expected to launch in November.

“In November, once the tool is val­i­dated and results ver­i­fied, we plan to release a free and acces­si­ble method that allows any olive grower, regard­less of size, type, loca­tion, or man­age­ment sys­tem, to cal­cu­late their car­bon bal­ance and gen­er­ate vol­un­tary car­bon cred­its aligned with cur­rent and upcom­ing stan­dards, espe­cially the E.U.’s CRCF (Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming) frame­work,” Polo Palomino said.

The IOC’s ambi­tions go beyond offer­ing a ground­break­ing tool to the olive sec­tor.

“Our goal is to ensure soci­ety rec­og­nizes olive groves as agro-ecosys­tems that, in addi­tion to pro­duc­ing the best veg­etable fat known to human­ity, extra vir­gin olive oil, also pro­vide ecosys­tem ser­vices that ben­e­fit human well-being, such as help­ing com­bat cli­mate change and con­tribut­ing to plan­e­tary health,” Polo Palomino said.

“In short, every­one should under­stand that con­sum­ing extra vir­gin olive oil is good for both their health and the planet,” he added.

According to the IOC, this project will make a real con­tri­bu­tion to address­ing cli­mate change. ​“We begin from sci­en­tific evi­dence: olive groves, domes­ti­cated by agri­cul­ture, now cover 11 mil­lion hectares, mostly in the Mediterranean region,” Polo Palomino said.

“Through cer­tain agri­cul­tural prac­tices, we can opti­mize their func­tion, improv­ing their net CO2 bal­ance and con­tribut­ing to the U.N. goal of cli­mate neu­tral­ity by 2050.”

Expectations around the mar­ket poten­tial of vol­un­tary car­bon cred­its have grown since the lat­est IPCC report and the intro­duc­tion of new EU reg­u­la­tions.

Still, the IOC urges cau­tious opti­mism. 

“These expec­ta­tions are still risky, as reg­u­la­tory processes are ongo­ing at both the stan­dard and mar­ket lev­els,” Polo Palomino said. ​“At the IOC, we’re work­ing hard to deliver a sci­en­tif­i­cally sound sys­tem that meets the needs of our sec­tor.”

“The pro­jec­t’s first phase focuses on devel­op­ing an easy-to-use car­bon bal­ance cal­cu­la­tor for all olive sec­tor stake­hold­ers,” Sikaoui con­cluded. ​“As the pilot phase moves for­ward, we invite all oper­a­tors to join in and help strengthen this vital ini­tia­tive.”