Planting willow on your land can help reduce your farm’s net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce the carbon intensity of food production.
What we know about willow for carbon farming
Willow can be used for a myriad of different end products – most of these will have a much lower carbon footprint than using fossil fuel alternatives.
An average willow plantation will produce an equivalent of 10 oven dry tonnes of biomass per year. 50% of this mass is above ground carbon.
An average of around 2 oven dry tonnes of carbon is sequestered in the soil per year.
Willow plantings can be deployed to reduce the life cycle GHG emissions from other processes such as effluent disposal and water treatment.
SRC plantations increase soil organic carbon and increase fertility.
What we're exploring next
Analysis of soil organic carbon at different sites in different ages of crop.
Updating willow life cycle GHG analysis for different supply chains.
Submitting data to respected and independent farm carbon calculators.
Investigating the potential for willow carbon farming to be traded on carbon markets and the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification required to achieve this.
