SEMINAR: Soil carbon and the development of international carbon footprinting protocols

Carbon gives life to soil. It acts to sustain the soil functioning which enables soil to provide the ecosystem services which are essential for human well-being. Beyond this role there is growing interest in soil carbon because of its ability to sequester, or emit carbon, and the impact of these fluxes on climate-change mitigation and adaptation.

Concerns over carbon emmissions and climate change have led to the development of carbon footprint protocols, using life-cycle assessment methods, to alert comsumers to the magnitude of the carbon emissions contained in the various products they purchase.

This lecture takes a look at the challenge of establishing verifiable protocols that can be used in the LCA-based framework for the carbon footprinting of food and fibre products, the importance of calculating the carbon footprint of fruit products such as apple, kiwifruit and wine, and Dr Clothier will also discuss new carbon footprinting protocol developments in the ISO (International Standards Organisation)