Nature-backed Assets / Europe / 2019
Verifiable carbon yield measurement across forestry assets
Carbon sequestration across a forestry portfolio was being estimated on survey cycles measured in years. We designed a system pairing aerial LiDAR with geospatial analytics to value carbon yield continuously and verifiably.
Disciplines
- Geospatial analytics
- Asset instrumentation
- Verification systems
Context
The portfolio’s carbon position was real, but its measurement was periodic, sample-based and slow. That was tolerable for internal reporting and inadequate for two purposes the owner wanted to serve: ESG disclosure that would withstand scrutiny, and participation in voluntary carbon markets, where a buyer is purchasing the measurement as much as the carbon.
Approach
We designed the system around biomass growth as the measured quantity, using aerial LiDAR to assess sequestration across the estate rather than extrapolating from plots. The analytical work was in reconciling the LiDAR returns with ground truth to a stated confidence, and in being clear about the residual uncertainty rather than presenting a single figure.
Verification was treated as a first-class requirement. Measurements are committed to on-chain records so that a valuation can be traced to the survey that produced it — the property that makes the output usable by a counterparty who was not present when the measurement was taken.
Outcome
The owner gained real-time valuation of carbon yield with an audit trail attached, supporting both ESG reporting and voluntary carbon market participation on a basis that a third party can check.