Back in April 2021, the NEBRA Board of Directors, at the urging and direction of Vice President Lise LeBlanc, created two new committees that aligned very nicely with some of the goals in the strategic plan that the Board started working on later that year. One of the new committees is focused on non-biosolids residuals (see NEBRA Residuals Committee Spotlight — NEBRA (nebiosolids.org)) and the other was called the Carbon and Nutrient Trading Committee, charged with learning about carbon credits and nutrient trading programs that could benefit NEBRA members.

The Carbon and Nutrient Trading Committee was initially led by Lise LeBlanc and NEBRA Executive Director Janine Burke-Wells. Under Lise’s direction, the committee started out by collecting information on Canadian and United States programs, including federal and provincial/state-level programs, for carbon and nutrient trading. It quickly became clear that the nutrient trading programs were very geographically specific (WQT and Offset Programs by State | The Environmental Trading Network (envtn.org)) and there were only a few in the Northeast region. As a result, the committee’s focus quickly turned to carbon trading programs and projects.

In November 2021, the Board appointed Bill Brower of Brown & Caldwell to chair the committee. Bill has written and presented extensively on the role for biosolids in tackling climate change. Bill took on the challenge and created a guiding goal for the committee which was to help develop one residuals land application carbon project in the Northeast. The self-imposed deadline was optimistic and has now come and gone. There were numerous challenges and barriers to accomplishing this laudable goal.

For example, the committee learned early on about the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)’s Soil Carbon Amendment practices which could significantly benefit farmers using biosolids-based soil amendments. However, in May 2022, NRCS proposed its Code 336, Conservation Practice Standard for Soil Carbon Amendment (336-CPS) which excluded biosolids-based products. The committee helped NEBRA write a strong comment letter (Reg-Leg Committee — NEBRA (nebiosolids.org)) in June 2022, to no avail. It was disappointing and pretty much killed the idea of developing a farm-based carbon credit project.

The committee learned a lot and is preparing a report for NEBRA members to discover more about the carbon markets. Thanks to guest speakers with expertise on various aspects of carbon trading, the committee got to hear about a variety of concepts, including: regulatory versus voluntary carbon markets, “additionality” (The Concept Of Additionality In The Voluntary Carbon Market, Explained (forbes.com)), standards for certifying carbon credits, and program challenges. The speakers included:

Scott Subler of ClimeCo, Dr. Glenn Dale and Andrew Yates from Verterra, an Australian company, Serge Loubier with Englobe who discussed their asbestos mine reclamation project (for possible carbon credits), Megan McCarthy with ROCarbon of Canada, and Andrew Friedenthal with CHAR Technologies on biochar credit programs. (One thing learned: Canada’s programs are much more robust than those in the U.S.)

The Carbon Trading Committee also oversees the management and upgrades to the Biosolids Emission Assessment Model (BEAM, link to www.BiosolidsGHGs.org) and has established a small team of BEAM power users, calling themselves the BEAM Team, to assist with BEAM updates.

The Carbon Trading Committee, which NEBRA Executive Director Janine Burke-Wells calls “a committee before its time” is currently considering what to do with all this information and what to work on in the future.  The committee’s next meeting in October will feature Lise LeBlanc of LP Consulting discussing their carbon farming projects (see Carbon Cropping Farms Fund - YouTube for more information).