Entrade, Environmental Offsetting and Trading

[sahara]

We have been approached through our local FWAG people to see if we are interested in getting involved in this.

In a nutshell it would appear that we as farmers would agree to do certain things at the farm level e.g over wintered cover crops, hedge row work, fencing water courses, and various other similar things. These generate environmental credits that can be sold through the Entrade company to other organisations including house builders and even Wessex Water (their parent company).
Its obviously a bit more refined than what I have described, but that's the general gist.

Has anyone had any experience with this? I believe there was a similar project based in and around Poole harbour.

To me it feels like big business buying their way out of their pollution problems without actually doing anything about solving them, but I am happily corrected.

Have a look at EnTrade

Thoughts?

 

[Muddyroads]

It’s funny how our industry is destroying the planet, yet at the same time has nature and carbon credits available to sell. As far as I’m concerned there is a bad smell about it. Just look at Bill Gates today. Telling people not to eat beef, while his company is busy buying carbon credits to offset their emissions from cattle farms in Oz.
They need to sort their own pollution, not think they can buy their way out of trouble from us.

 

[sahara]

My immediate thoughts were much the same. However, being only a simple peasant I might well have totally misunderstood it all!

 

[Muddyroads]

As an industry we ought to be able to use it to our advantage. If what we do day to day is so beneficial, it should counter a lot of the current negative publicity.

 

[Canada Farmer]

We have been approached through our local FWAG people to see if we are interested in getting involved in this.

In a nutshell it would appear that we as farmers would agree to do certain things at the farm level e.g over wintered cover crops, hedge row work, fencing water courses, and various other similar things. These generate environmental credits that can be sold through the Entrade company to other organisations including house builders and even Wessex Water (their parent company).
Its obviously a bit more refined than what I have described, but that's the general gist.

Has anyone had any experience with this? I believe there was a similar project based in and around Poole harbour.

To me it feels like big business buying their way out of their pollution problems without actually doing anything about solving them, but I am happily corrected.

Have a look at EnTrade

Thoughts?

Mitigation is merely sidestepping the situation, passing the buck (no pun intended) without addressing the issue of reducing the alleged negative environmental effects.
Any financial redress by any mechanism is equally complicit as they are merely "cooking the books"....

 

[wanton dwarf]

Mitigation is merely sidestepping the situation, passing the buck (no pun intended) without addressing the issue of reducing the alleged negative environmental effects.
Any financial redress by any mechanism is equally complicit as they are merely "cooking the books"....

Smacks of the Recycling system .. which ended up as burning plastic in Asia.

Isn't it about time we saw HMG forefilling on the existing "Environmental" commitments. Such as actually recycling and counting CO2 on imported goods. Rather than fudges on spreadsheets that cost peoples livelihoods and way of life.

 

[Canada Farmer]

Smacks or the Recycling system .. which ended up as burning plastic in Asia.

Isn't it about time we saw HMG forefilling on the existing "Environmental" commitments. Such as actually recycling and counting CO2 on imported goods. Rather than fudges on spreadsheets that cost peoples livelihoods and way of life.

The world is full of fudges, smudges and bludgers.....

 

[DaveGrohl]

I think we all know what's going on here. We should be using it to our advantage though to illustrate how big business knows that cattle farming has nothing to do with climate change (and are willing to buy the credit for it) while telling the world that it's farmers causing the damage and not them. The ultimate magic trick.

 

[Spencer]

They’re basically saying that farming is already near as carbon neutral as it is....

but no, but wait, hang on, no that’s not what, er er ............ cow farts

 

[onesiedale]

This year we will see hundreds of businesses set up worldwide to trade in this stuff. Glasgow's climate summit has a lot to do with it.
Unfortunately governments will see it as a way for private sector finance to subsidise agriculture and food production.
As the BPS disappears, a new form of land control will come in, and it will be worse than before because carbon levelsand targets will have to be met at all costs. . . to the farmer
Meanwhile, the big companies financing this stuff will just carry on peddling their consumerism.

 

[white_stuffed]

How do we value our environmental goods? It would be good to set some high bars nice and early. Before too many sign up piecemeal agreements which then get used as evidence of the market price.

 

[Muddyroads]

How do we value our environmental goods? It would be good to set some high bars nice and early. Before too many sign up piecemeal agreements which then get used as evidence of the market price.

In my view, they have no value, they’re priceless and one of the positive aspects of what we do day to day. Selling them will be like selling the family silver. Our environmental consciences should be pretty clear. It’s down to the rest of the industries to match our carbon and environmental impacts, not for us to bail them out whilst at the same time demonising us. I’m buggered if the likes of Quorn are going to buy my credits in order to pedal their cr@p

 

[Tarw Coch]

In my view, they have no value, they’re priceless and one of the positive aspects of what we do day to day. Selling them will be like selling the family silver. Our environmental consciences should be pretty clear. It’s down to the rest of the industries to match our carbon and environmental impacts, not for us to bail them out whilst at the same time demonising us. I’m buggered if the likes of Quorn are going to buy my credits in order to pedal their cr@p

This ^^^^^
It’s not our problem to bail the polluters out.
Tempting as the money may be it will do us no good in the end although I fear farmers will fall..............or rush headlong into the trap

 

[Ted M]

This ^^^^^
It’s not our problem to bail the polluters out.
Tempting as the money may be it will do us no good in the end although I fear farmers will fall..............or rush headlong into the trap

Exactly right, I've said it before and will again. It's tantamount to doing a deal with the devil.

 

[betweenthelines]

It sounds to me like "crypto currency"

Something with no real basis on which it's value can be set, but someone can make money out of it.

 

[N.Yorks.]

This talk went out in the summer last year and talks about this sort of payment:

They talk about Nestle in Cumbria who view the risk to their suppliers..... they don't want their farmers to be damaged by flooding as that damages the Nestle business model etc etc.

The talk will help get your heads round some of these ideas..... it's not cynical sh!t shovelling as suggested above!

 

[Chris F]

@Gentle Farming this might be another marketplace like Zellar.

 

[N.Yorks.]

@Gentle Farming this might be another marketplace like Zellar.

Just looked up your 'Gentle Farming' website. I see how you're trying to take payments for what is described as regenerative agriculture, but what I don't understand is how you measure the positive outcomes on farm and how you weight payments for these.

I get it that it's very early days for this approach and I guess this is a start down that path of payments for ecosystem services, but how are you describing values for payments and how is this all weighted to the supplier (farmer)? Difficult questions ..... but interesting to discuss?

 

[Brisel]

It sounds to me like "crypto currency"

Something with no real basis on which it's value can be set, but someone can make money out of it.

Create schemes and the schemers will dive into them. 'Twas ever thus.

Virtue signalling? Yep. Nice PR campaign saying what good you're doing by offsetting with X acres of trees here and Y acres of biodiversity there and Z tonnes of carbon sequestered there, whilst still producing goods as cheaply as possible.

That's just my cynical view, but businesses WILL be forced to offset carbon, biodiversity, nutrient pollution (this is where Entrade got started) etc and WE can help with that. A market will develop and farmers will be part of that. Government would like the market to develop by itself - let Jaguar Land Rover sort its own carbon out with private deals rather than Whitehall becoming involved.

How do we value our environmental goods? It would be good to set some high bars nice and early. Before too many sign up piecemeal agreements which then get used as evidence of the market price.

This is absolutely right. If we let the brokers and polluters work out what it costs to produce these and land occupiers don't capture as much as possible of this value, we will just be left to gather just enough pennies to keep us doing it while others pocket that value. That requires land occupiers to work together for collective bargaining. Not something we have a good track record for.

 

[gatepost]

Certainly looks like the sort of thing being suggested here in Glos, but more of a collective venture for a whole area/ANOB ? almost as part of greening, which could be traded, opt in or out.