2022 Carbon Credits in Agriculture

Photo credit: Pixabay

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The 2022 Energy Impact Fellowship team spent the summer in collaboration with Working Trees, a company who's mission is to deploy more trees in the agricultural space. They started by establishing trees on pasture land in the US Southeast, and have officially launched the first agroforestry carbon project in the United States. The Impact Fellows worked on exploring the technical, economic and regulatory barriers of the carbon market specifically in the agroforestry space, while drafting a project report for Working Trees.

As stated in the overview of the project report, "The agricultural benefits of incorporating trees into active pastureland or hayland, known as "silvopasture", include reduced livestock mortality, minimized heat stress, improved soil health, increased hay yield, improved water retention and infiltration. At the same time, planting trees on pastureland or hayland has been identified as the largest climate solution for carbon sequestration." To learn more about their project, visit the links below!

2022 Energy Impact Fellows

Hannah Huddleston '23

Majoring in Computer Science 

Hannah's takeaways from the fellowship:

"For technical projects, have a long term vision, make incremental progress, and get regular feedback."

"Don’t be discouraged if you don’t know the answer right away."

Luke Molbak '23

Majoring in Earth Systems 

Luke M.'s takeaways from the fellowship:

"Always think about units when dealing with convoluted equations."

"Spend time getting to know the literature."

"Keep records of the “why’s” in decision making."

Nneoma Uche '25

Majoring in Environmental Systems Engineering

Nneoma's takeaways from the fellowship:

"A good piece of advice is to keep records of everything that you work on, especially if you have to work on multiple projects/moving parts at once. I found my work went easiest when I learned to keep detailed records (like dictionaries and appendices) I could reference back to whenever needed."

Luke Veit '25

Undeclared

Luke V.'s takeaways from the fellowship:

"Track sources and docs across project work areas to make compiling easier."

"Keep overall vision for project in mind in order to avoid getting bogged down."

"Rejections on the phone are not personal."