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