Insetting

Using Insetting to Reduce Environmental Impact

Insetting is a powerful tool that gives companies an economically viable path to reduce or eliminate the environmental impacts of their products and business.

Insetting provides a proactive approach to reduce environmental impacts directly within a corporation’s own sphere of influence and value chain.

Here is an example of how this can work: a hotel chain decided to develop its own sustainable supply of olive oil rather than rely on traditional sources.  The chain funded the creation of olive groves and hired local residents to plant and care for the trees. The hotel buys the olive oil from these groves knowing that it was developed sustainably. In addition to creating more jobs, the hotel can claim that they have lowered their carbon footprint because their olive oil program is sequestering atmospheric carbon in the soil and the trees themselves.

Any visionary organization can benefit from an insetting program. Climate Smart Group is the leading expert on insetting in North America. Looking to reduce your environmental impact? Let’s talk about insetting projects customized for your company’s needs.

Our Conservation Innovation Insetting Project

Climate Smart Group is leading a USDA Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) in conjunction with the Soil Health Partnership and Bayer. Other project partners include Applied GeoSolutions, CropGrowers, DNDC-ART and EFC Systems. Together we are developing a Carbon Accounting and Insetting Framework that will be implemented across the US Midwest in 2018. This framework is a tool that organizations can use to quantify emission reductions that result from sustainable agricultural practices implemented by their agricultural producers and suppliers. The project’s goal is to work with these farm groups to help them lower the environmental impact of their farms and produce sustainably-grown products that buyers are demanding.

Our Framework is also working to lower the costs of GHG emission reduction quantification and verification to produce more cost-effective carbon reductions at scale. This includes the use of innovative technologies, such as remote-sensing data products to achieve low-cost, low-touch verification opportunities.

Available Documents for Downloading

As part of the CIG grant, Climate Smart Group first prepared a whitepaper report – Assessing the Insetting Landscape – to assess the current state of insetting within the industry. This paper formed the basis of information for the CIG grant and helped illuminate potential roots forward.

Additionally, to achieve responsible and accurate carbon accounting for agricultural projects, projects must grapple with various technical difficulties. Four discussion papers have been developed to understand these issues: Additionality, Aggregation, Permanence, and Verification, and have been informing the development of the Carbon Accounting and Insetting Framework. They are available for download here:

A beta-version of the Carbon Accounting and Insetting Framework is currently being tested, and will eventually be publicly available. Stakeholders, industry leaders, and others are welcome to be involved in the development process. Please email us to collaborate on our insetting program development at info@climatesmartgroup.com.