Washington, DC and Des Moines, IA, (GreenNewswire) -- The Novecta-facilitated Agricultural Carbon Sequestration Standard Committee is seeking public comment on a draft of the first-ever Ag Soil Credit Standard.
The group developed this standard to validate soil-based carbon offset methodologies and systems that can be broadly accepted. The standard used elements from ISO 9001, ISO Guide 65 and National Organic Program (NOP).
A pdf file of the standard draft may be downloaded at the Novecta web site at: www.novecta.com.
Comment procedure and comment review:
- The comment period will last only until June 26, 2009
- Please direct all comments to Gary DeLong, Managing Director of Novecta, by email.
His address is: garyd@novecta.com - Comments should be noted by page number and section as appropriate.
- The comments will be assembled into a matrix format for review by the committee and any others who are interested in doing so.
- At the conclusion of the comment period the comments will be review by the committee and then submitted to United States Department Agriculture (USDA) for review.
The standard committee was formed in August 2008 to create an industry-wide standard for validating carbon offsets resulting from soil carbon sequestration of greenhouse gas emission reductions at the soil interface. The committee has grown to more than 50 committee members and observers from leading agricultural businesses to members of the carbon industry including aggregators, verifiers, exchange traders, soil scientists and others interested in carbon measurements. This working group is being facilitated by
Novecta.
Novecta is a joint venture company of the Iowa and Illinois Corn Growers Associations. Novecta is active in auditing and implementing quality management systems in agriculture in grains and grain processing throughout the U.S. and Asia. www.novecta.com.
