Professors John Crawford (Adam Smith Business School – University of Glasgow) and Hugh Harley (School of Economics - University of Sydney) together with Alan Hendry (Director of Sustainability, Mott MacDonald), Steve Holmes & Paul Grant (University of Glasgow) are working with a consortium of major corporates to implement a global framework for the improvement of soil health and the sequestration of carbon in soils.
Carbon sequestration in soil offers both globally significant potential to reduce atmospheric carbon, and simultaneously, improve soil health to deliver additional water security and biodiversity benefits. This is within a context where, on current trajectories, up to 90% of soil, upon which we rely for food production and water management, will be degraded by 2050.
Unlike carbon sequestration through tree planting, there is currently no global framework for carbon trading, accounting, or quality assurance for soil. Nor is there is a mechanism to link carbon emitters with the agricultural sector that can deliver carbon sequestration and thereby improved soil health. The Universities of Glasgow and Sydney are jointly leading the Global Soil Health Programme delivered via a precompetitive consortium including Bayer, BASF, UPL, Shell, RaboBank, Microsoft and PWC to address this gap.
