Cooperation between provinces

Provinces are looking to intensify the climate contribution in the form of CO2 sequestration in local projects. Think of trees and forest agriculture, but also new methods such as bio-based construction, seaweed production and olivine; methods that besides climate impact also realise other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Climate Cleanup Foundation can stimulate cooperation in and between the provinces of South Holland, North Holland and Gelderland for the development of three additional routes that contribute substantially to the fulfilment of the climate ambitions: Bio-based building (South Holland), seaweed and olivine (North Holland) and agroforestry (Gelderland).

These three routes have been chosen because of their broad positive impact and potential scalability: wood/biobased building can contribute around 5Mt/yr in 2030 (100Mt for 1 million houses, 5Mt/yr in 2030), seaweed cultivation around 9Mt/yr, agroforestry 7Mt/yr (numbers are ‘technical potential’ life cycle (LCA) based estimates of CO2 reduction in 2030 in the Netherlands).

LifeLab

The LifeLab is the staging area for the development and demonstration of Oncra integrations. It is a space organized around unstructured nodes, where we bring together ideas, research, data and people to advance solutions to the climate crisis. The Biobased Building Node will be used to create an open source and light-weight, yet holistic and comprehensive methodology for building material assessments. In practical terms it will be where we report back on the progress of each individual sprint so that each project partner has a concise way of communicating its status and progress. After each sprint the materials can be compiled and used as the basis of a promotional email sent to all stakeholders and interested parties.

Our partners

Three implementing parties take care of the local implementation: Holland Houtland in South Holland, reNature Foundation in Gelderland, GreenSand in North Holland. In cooperation with existing construction projects, seaweed cultivation and agroforestry, a reliable model will be developed and applied consisting of validated components. This model provides, among other things, calculation and impact reporting that provides insight into the CO2 saved and captured with other SDG benefits (nitrogen, nature, jobs) based on the SDGs. This facilitates scaling up. The framework and the calculation model are developed open source from and connected to the methodology of the Green Deal Nationale Koolstofmarkt.

Full carbon accounting

Transformation and information designers from Climate Cleanup and Holland Houtland are working with the Province and entrepreneurs in a ‘Life Lab’ that investigates and implements the wicked problem of carbon accounting for CO2 storage in a practical way. Goal and working method is to realise a minimal working transaction model as soon as possible, but together, resulting in the entrepreneur (bio-based builder) being paid for the carbon added value. An evaluation is made of the net carbon sequestration in a specific biobased construction project. The choice of the project is part of the first sprint under this assignment. The evaluation, in the form of a report with SDG scorecard, is based as much as possible on existing methodologies, including the approach of the Dutch National Carbon Market Foundation, and follows the process steps as shown in Figure 1. Aspects such as duration of storage and avoided emissions are central to the analysis. Innovative is the ‘full carbon’ analysis, in which additional benefits for SDGs other than climate are not only identified but also priced in. A Tier 1 approach is a first phase assessment with large but specified margins of uncertainty. Such an approach is not new, but it is insufficiently applied. The aim is that even with incomplete information, inherent in natural carbon storage, ex ante transactions can still be facilitated by making reliability margins explicit. It is also innovative that, in addition to the accounting methodology, the calculation models are also available in an open repository as much as possible according to commons-principles, so that developers and governments worldwide can make use of them and build on them. These ‘data commons’ are part of the framework mentioned under point 4 sub 3 below. Further development of its governance is part of this project.

Figure 1 – full carbon accounting system for natural climate solutions

The figure above shows the complex correlation in current carbon accounting frameworks for selling voluntary carbon credits. This project works on the addition of biobouw as a method on the assessment side left (research, data and method), on the development of system elements Open Repository and SDG-Certification (integration of ‘additional benefits’), Transaction (the concept transaction platform) and reporting (a ‘full carbon’ CO2 and SDG reporting).