Nature-Deployed Environmental Credit Generating Companies Announce Reykjavik Protocol, Addressing Risks in Carbon Markets
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Sept. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- At a recent summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, a representative group of leading nature-deployed environmental credit-generating companies and scientific leaders drafted a set of principles that governs how suppliers can responsibly bring their solutions to market. This first-of-its-kind set of principles, known as the Reykjavik Protocol, provides a framework for nature-deployed environmental credit suppliers across the industry that is intended to evolve with the market. This summit was the first time nature-deployed environmental credit suppliers, who are primarily operating in the carbon removal space, have convened to specifically address the structural risks that represent barriers to scale for the industry.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) plays a pivotal role in addressing the urgent global challenge of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has underscored the critical need for carbon removal by 2050 to limit global warming to manageable levels. Carbon removal technologies and practices involve capturing and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They provide a crucial tool in achieving net-zero emissions and safeguarding the planet's future, offering hope for mitigating the most severe consequences of climate change and preserving a habitable world for future generations.
Nature-deployed approaches utilize and enhance natural processes to remove carbon, protect critical ecosystems, enhance biodiversity, and provide security for our food systems.
The suppliers that participated in the summit include:
- Lithos - Enhanced Rock Weathering Company - San Francisco, USA
- Living Carbon - Biotech/Tree Planting Company - San Francisco, USA
- Mombak - Amazon Reforestation Company - São Paulo, Brasil
- Planetary - Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Company - Nova Scotia, Canada
- Running Tide - Ocean Health Company - Portland, ME, USA & Reykjavik, IS
- UNDO - Enhanced Rock Weathering Company - London, UK
- Yardstick - Soil Carbon Measurement Company - Oakland, USA
Additional contributors to the Protocol included academic, scientific, and NGO representatives from the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, Ocean Frontier Institute, Ocean Networks Canada, and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture.
Nature-deployed projects represent some of the most scalable, permanent, and cost-effective climate solutions available today, but are also subject to the highest levels of scrutiny. By creating a uniform set of principles, these companies aim to increase buyer trust and address the perceived risks of the environmental credits that they and their direct competitors sell on the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM). As a result, this should instill more confidence and accelerate the growth of the market.
"By providing a set of Principles for how suppliers can responsibly bring their solutions to market and reduce industry-wide conflicts of interest, we aim to:
- address the ineffective risk transfer that has hindered environmental markets,
- increase the quality and standardization of the assets produced, and
- enable the development the market structures require to enable these solutions at scale."
- The Reykjavik Protocol
In total, twelve initial principles were agreed upon. Environmental credit suppliers that sign on to the Reykjavik Protocol commit to implementing its principles for all their environmental credit projects within the next two years, while supporters from academia, research organizations and NGOs commit to advocating for the principles across their work. All signatories also commit to evolving the Protocol to match the realities of the market as it scales. The founding signatories invite interested parties engaged in the environmental credit space - suppliers and non-suppliers alike - to sign onto the Protocol.
For more information, please visit www.reykjavik-protocol.com or reach out to [email protected].
The Founding Signatories & Supporters of the Reykjavik Protocol are listed alphabetically by organization below:
Supplier signatories
Gonzalo Fuenzalida, CEO, Andes
Paul Myer, CEO, Athian
Brilliant Planet
Shannon Sterling, Founder & CSO at CarbonRun
Christopher Knop, CEO, Carbon Sequestration Inc
Antonius Gagern, Executive Director, Carbon to Sea Initiative
Cascade Climate
Jeff Sun, CEO & Co-founder, Circular Impact
Climate Farmers
Cultivo
Troy Carter, Earthshot Labs
Eion
Pascal Michel, Founder & CEO, Everest Carbon Inc
David Elliott, CEO, The Future Forest Company
Meg Chatham, Carbon Standards & Sales of Grassroots Carbon Public Benefit LLC
Matthew Clarkson, Head of Carbon, InPlanet
Ben Veres, CEO, Kateri
Mary Yap, Founder & CEO, Lithos Carbon
Maddie Hall, Founder & CEO, Living Carbon
Guy Hudson, CEO & Co-founder, Loam Bio
Chad Pawlak CEO, Locus Agricultural Solutions & Animal Nutrition
Shantanu Agarwal, Founder & Ceo, Mati Carbon
Xavier Laguarta, Devdut Dalal, and Nathan Torbick, Co-founders, Mitti Labs
Dan Harburg, CTO, Mombak
Mike Kellend, CEO, Planetary Technologies
Pull To Refresh
David Auerbach, Co-Founder, Regen Organics
Ram Amar, CEO of Rewind.earth
Marty Odlin, CEO & Founder, Running Tide
Seafields
Paddy Estridge, CEO, and Professor Mike Allen, CSO, Seaweed Generation
Jim Mann, Founder & CEO, UNDO Carbon
Tom Green, Co-Founder & CEO of Vesta
Chris Tolles, CEO & Co-Founder, Yard Stick PBC
Supporter signatories
Steve Oldham, CEO, Captura
Ben Rubin, Executive Director, Carbon Business Council
Joachim Katchinoff, Founder & CEO, CREW Carbon
Zack Parisa, CEO, NCX
Kate Moran, (O.C.), President and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada (ONC)
Toby Bryce, CDR Policy and Market Development, OpenAir
CONTACT: info@reykjavikprotocol.com
SOURCE The Reykjavik Protocol
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