Gevo partners with Farmers Edge to verify sustainable fuels from low-carbon crops

Gevo Inc. and Farmers Edge Inc. have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to deliver a carbon inset management program, the companies announced April 5.

The focus of the collaboration is on extracting value from carbon insets, which represent the actions taken by an organization to fight climate change within its own value chain, as opposed to offsets, which are typically paying for a project to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide somewhere else. The collaboration is expected to support the sustainable development and full carbon-lifecycle tracking of a carbon intensity (CI) score from low-carbon grain through renewable fuels production.

A combination of the proprietary datasets of Farmers Edge with Gevo’s Verity Tracking platform and blockchain technology is expected to create value around agriculturally driven carbon impact. The companies plan to launch a program with U.S. growers to measure and track CI scores for corn and soy in the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and other low-carbon fuels. The pairing is expected to create a unique opportunity for the transportation industry to reduce its carbon footprint, meet sustainability goals, and increase transparency with customers.

“Companies around the world are looking for ways to reduce the amount of pollution they produce, and in transportation, fuels derived from crops are a major tool to make that happen,” said Wade Barnes, Farmers Edge CEO and founder. “Our comprehensive digital platform, in conjunction with Gevo's advanced validation tools, should provide reliable and verifiable ways for carriers around the world to not only reduce their carbon footprint, but to be able to prove it, positively impacting their relationships with the end-consumer.”

Paul Bloom, Gevo’s chief carbon and innovation officer, stated, “This pioneering collaboration with Farmers Edge is an industry first to scale-up carbon accounting for climate-smart agricultural practices across the full carbon lifecycle from farm to food, fuels and sustainable products. We look forward to bringing the data-driven capabilities and technology of both organizations to help our value-chain partners and customers prove their carbon-footprint reductions on our collective journey to net zero and beyond.”

David George, Gevo’s senior vice president of Verity Tracking, added, “The goal of Verity Tracking is to increase market validation and liquidity for carbon-based digital assets, return this value in multiple forms back down to the farming level, and provide scientifically modeled, verifiable carbon-impact scoring through Argonne GREET to the farmers. This technology will allow farmers to track their feedstock-related CI score that can then be quantified through the value chain into biofuels like SAF, food products, energy, or consumer products. Verity Tracking’s capabilities coupled with Farmers Edge innovative technology and analytics should form the basis to make this a market reality.”