eAgronom: How Estonia's Carbon-Recapturing Startup is Helping Farmers Profit While Saving the Planet
- Gregory T
- Aug 11, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 28, 2024
By: Gregory T.
The Estonian agricultural carbon recapturing company eAgronom is offering a unique and sustainable approach to global warming. Founder and CEO, Robin Salouks, aspired to help local farmers generate more income while saving the planet at the same time.
Using eco-friendly agricultural practices is always more expensive than the industry standard. To make up for the higher costs, eAgronom helps farmers generate carbon credits, each worth one ton of carbon dioxide, and sell them on the voluntary carbon market. The price of one carbon credit is determined by the sustainability of the project, the location of the project, and whether it is recapture or simply prevention. The supply comes from carbon recapture or prevention projects that are verified by third-party nonprofits. Large corporations such as Samsung, Alphabet, and Disney buy carbon credits to achieve net zero goals and for marketing strategy purposes. The voluntary carbon market has been growing in value substantially, going from $200 million in 2016 to over $2 billion in 2021. Not to be confused with the mandatory carbon market, which is controlled by the government to manage carbon emissions in different industries. Allowances, each allowing a company to emit one ton of CO2, are given to companies for the amount of carbon they can emit that year, and, unlike the voluntary carbon market, there are serious penalties and fines for going over that amount.
Creating a carbon credit is not a simple process, and it is very difficult for a farmer to research all the necessary techniques, apply the techniques, and verify the carbon credit. Farmers will hire eAgronom to do all this work for them. First, they will do a basic assessment of the farm, the farm’s history, and more importantly, take soil samples. Next, a plan will be created and executed for the farm. Finally, eAgronom will connect the farmer with a third-party credit verifier that will award carbon credits to the farmers. In the end, the farmer will generate more profit from selling the carbon credits and fight climate change at the same time.
More in-depth dive into the Mandatory Carbon Market: One of the more popular frameworks includes the Cap and Trade system. In this system, the number of allowances among the entire industry is capped, and that limit is lowered every year. Over time, total emissions are lowered at a steady and achievable rate. The second part of the system is trading allowances. Companies that make advances in sustainability will have some leftover allowances that they can then sell to other corporations that are struggling to meet the emission cap. The other option is for these companies to hold on to their allowances and use them in the future. Two places where the Cap and Trade system exists are in California and the EU. The European Union has been setting a good example of how carbon markets, both voluntary and mandatory, can be implemented.
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