Agricultural property consultant Brown & Co has developed a variety of carbon footprinting services for horticultural and agricultural business. It hopes that this will assist growers in reducing energy and CO2 emissions.
The firm created a commercial and agricultural carbon calculator, and is also offering a range of services from an initial Carbon Health Check through to a full Carbon Footprinting Service.
The company’s Tony Hargreaves predicted that the carbon trading market will provide a valuable source of income for growers, farmers and landowners. At current trading prices, he reckoned, farmers with low energy inputs and large areas of land absorbing CO2 could trade carbon at around £8 per tonne while carrying on their business as usual.
By way of example, he said that it was feasible that a 260ha farm with 30ha of woodland, 20ha of set aside and 10ha of field margins could have a negative carbon balance of around 75 tonnes, which could be traded for £600 per year at current rates.
“A carbon footprint provides a benchmark to measure against others,” Hargreaves explained. “Helping to identify where action can be taken to reduce emissions, the footprint is a means of measuring the effectiveness of any changes and includes an assessment of the overall carbon balance. In the future, this has the potential to be offset or traded as carbon credits.”
Measure to reduce emissions include installing more energy efficient appliances from light bulbs to boilers, improving insulation, implementing ‘greener’ procurement and waste management and reducing mileage, for example using video conferencing for meetings.
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