A New Certified Protocol for Improved Soil Management

Isometric certified the Improved Soil Management (ISM) Protocol, which outlines requirements and procedures for projects that increase the amount of carbon stored in soils through management change including less intensive tillage practices, cover cropping, and incorporation of beneficial microorganisms.

Certification follows a comprehensive public consultation that included feedback from buyers, suppliers, and leading academics. Full details on how Isometric addressed feedback are available in the public consultation summary.

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How Improved Soil Management Works

Soils are the largest terrestrial reservoir of carbon on Earth, containing nearly 3 trillion tonnes of carbon, approximately three times as much as the atmosphere. Soils naturally accumulate carbon as plants capture carbon dioxide from the air and transfer it into the soil through their roots and when they decompose.

Actively improving how land is managed can significantly increase how much carbon is stored in soil. Improved management of croplands and grasslands could remove up to 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, more than the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

ISM techniques include reducing tillage—plowing or turning the soil—to keep carbon in the ground; growing cover crops between harvests to maintain carbon storage; and adding beneficial microorganisms to help plants access soil nutrients, grow faster, and store more carbon.

Alongside removing carbon, ISM can enhance drought resilience, improve agricultural productivity, reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers, increase biodiversity above and below ground, and reduce nutrient runoff into waterways. ISM can also provide an additional income stream for local farming communities while increasing the soil’s resilience to pests, disease, and climate change.

The Improved Soil Management Protocol

The ISM Protocol sets out how these removals are measured, certified, and monitored. It takes a scientifically rigorous approach to Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV), requiring carbon removal to be measured through direct soil sampling alone, or in combination with validated modeling approaches. Projects must account for all associated greenhouse gas emissions, from equipment use to project-related land management.

Each project must have a defined "project commitment period" of between 40 and 100 years, with the durability of issued certificates set at half the total commitment period. The commitment period contains a crediting period, during which the project removes carbon from the atmosphere. It can also include a subsequent monitoring period, should the project developer wish to generate certificates with longer durability.

Projects must also meet rigorous environmental and social safeguards, including a minimum 20% revenue share for enrolled landowners, reflecting their role in maintaining the carbon stocks, and meaningful community engagement throughout the project lifetime. Where project activities affect Indigenous Peoples, projects must follow the principles of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as outlined by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The ISM Protocol takes an adaptive approach to buffer pools, adjusting contributions to reflect each project's actual reversal risk. Suppliers can reduce their contribution by completing a project-specific risk assessment, which accounts for factors including the risk of extreme weather, long-term financial planning, and project development track record.

Supporting Modules

Specific ISM approaches are supported by their own modules. Alongside the protocol, Isometric has certified the Cropland Management Module, which covers projects that use reduced tillage, cover cropping, and beneficial microorganisms to remove carbon from croplands. A module covering ISM in grazing lands is currently under development.

Certifying Emissions Reductions

Isometric enables specific emissions reductions to be certified under the ISM Protocol, recognizing that agricultural emissions are tightly linked to the same management practices targeted by ISM interventions and can be mitigated alongside them.

The Agricultural Practices Reductions Module, also certified, allows suppliers to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions their projects avoid, primarily nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, from practices such as reduced synthetic fertilizer use and less frequent tractor passes under reduced tillage. These reductions are an integral benefit of improved soil management, and will be accounted for and certified separately from the removals quantified under the ISM Protocol.

To certify reductions, ISM projects must demonstrate that:

• reductions are causally linked to specific, identifiable management practices;

• those practices can be altered to reduce emissions and are not already widely adopted in the relevant crop, geography, and production context; and

• pre- and post-intervention data can be collected to estimate both realized emissions and counterfactual emissions (what emissions would have been without the intervention).

First Projects Registered Under the Protocol

Three leading project developers, Cultivo, Great Yellow, and HGX, are the first to register under the protocol.

Cultivo is regenerating US grasslands at scale, with more than 600,000 hectares contracted and backed by a $100 million capital deployment from Octopus Energy Generation. Great Yellow is making landscape regeneration investable across the UK, with a portfolio spanning more than 300,000 hectares. 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.

"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," said Dr. Manuel Piñuela, Cultivo CEO and co-founder.

“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," said Ed Dick, CEO of Great Yellow.

"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," said Radhika Moolgavkar, VP of Product at HGX.

The protocol and modules were developed through collaboration between Isometric's Science Team and reviewers from the independent Science Network of more than 400 academic experts and practitioners.