[vc_row inner_container=”no” padding_bottom=”0″][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”661″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” full_width=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Corporate Social Responsibility” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
The private sector wants and needs ways to offset the environmental damage that economic activity brings. Many companies have made public, standards-based goals and commitments to reduce their environmental footprint and are working hard to meet these commitments in a science-based, standards-based approach. Farmers and ranchers can provide more of those offsets if they can also prove their actions are effective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
ESMC has convened technical experts<\/a> from across its membership and outside organizations to run the world\u2019s most exhaustive pilot projects<\/a> to increase soil carbon sequestration, reduce greenhouse gases, improve soil health, and improve water quality and water quantify. The U.N.\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that agriculture accounted for about 22 percent of world greenhouse gas production in 2017. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says roughly 10 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions currently come from agriculture.<\/p>\n ESMC is a public-private partnership with over 60 members<\/a> who include farmers and ranchers and agriculture commodity organizations, as well as food and beverage companies, agribusinesses, and non-profit environmental and conservation organizations across the agricultural supply chain and value chain.<\/p>\n Our members, particularly the food, agriculture, and beverage companies, are the primary buyers of our assets. Our market provides corporate partners and buyers with certified outcomes to meet their own commitments toward carbon neutrality or net-zero carbon goals, commitments to reduce their environmental footprints and supply chain footprints and efforts to contribute to global Sustainable Development Goals 2030 impacts. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n ESMC\u2019s national scale program creates a centralized, technologically advanced platform to support our members\u2019 ambitions\u00a0to continue\u00a0investing\u00a0in sustainable, equitable, just, and environmentally sustainable food systems. Our program infrastructure serves all buyers and sellers in the agricultural supply chain and value chain and negates the need for every company and every producer to make the investments in market infrastructure or tools and technologies themselves. ESMC provides assurance to these buyers that they can cost-effectively meet their goals and obligations\u00a0through\u00a0a transparent, science-based,\u00a0and certified program\u00a0to ensure\u00a0credibility\u00a0of these outcomes to their consumers, stakeholders, and shareholder expectations.<\/span><\/p>\n For more information on our approach, please see:<\/p>\n ESMC generates multiple, stacked assets for use in one of two existing ecosystem service markets\u2014what we refer to as the Scope 1 or voluntary carbon offset markets (and analogous water quality markets), and the Scope 3 or corporate supply chain reporting market (for greenhouse gases, and increasingly, for water). This concept of different \u201cscopes\u201d is based on the <\/span><\/span>Greenhouse Gas Protocol<\/span><\/span><\/a> developed by the World Resources Institute.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Buyers generally have stated commitments to reduce both Scope 1 and Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and can buy offsets to account for Scope 1 emissions<\/a> reductions. ESMC\u2019s program can generate Scope 1 offsets for purchase and can also support corporate interventions in their supply chain to help generate credible claims (which we call assets) about reduced greenhouse gases or increased soil carbon achieved. One example of a Scope 1 offset: a food company might pay for carbon stored in the soil by farmers, however, Scope 1 offsets can come from anywhere, including from areas totally unrelated to a company\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> reductions or increased soil carbon sequestration, on the other hand, come from sources not owned or directly controlled by a company, but related to their activities. Scope 3 must reduce a company\u2019s footprint associated with the products (e.g., corn) purchased by the company, and must come from the supply shed that the product was purchased from. Claims cannot exceed the volume of product purchased from that supply shed.<\/p>\n When\u00a0ESMC\u2019s\u00a0market launches in 2022, producers will enroll in Scope 1 or Scope 3 projects. Payments will depend on the specific\u00a0asset\u00a0being sold\u00a0to either the Scope 1 or 3 market, and the market will dictate the value for each of the producer\u2019s ecosystem services.<\/p>\n ESMC connects buyers and sellers in our linked market program to help meet demand in both markets in a credible, transparent, certified program. Companies and organizations interested in buying ESMC assets should contact David Dayhoff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Scope 1 and Scope 3<\/h2>\n