Last Updated:  Last updated: January 2, 2024

Contact:  Jacob Penner, jacob.penner@tnc.org

Disclaimer:  This spreadsheet is intended for the purpose of quickly estimating the carbon credit potential of projects to be developed under Verra's VCS Methodology for Improved Agricultural Land Management (VM0042) v2.0 for use in a Project Idea Note (PIN). The tool intakes user-provided estimates of the project's impacts on multiple GHG sources and pools and performs calculations in the methodology to forecast the project's subsequent credit yield while accounting for key factors required by the methodology such as:

• Project GHG Boundary
• Uncertainty Deductions
• Leakage Deductions
• Non-permanence Buffer Deductions

This tool is intended for use at the PIN stage of project development to help users quickly assess project credit potential. It is very simplistic and relies on assumptions that must be further investigated during the project development lifecycle. It is therefore NOT appropriate for projects in the Feasibility Assessment or Project Design stages.

All tan cells highlighted in the 'Tool' tab are editable and all other cells are locked. See below for further background on each of the key factors mentioned above and how they are treated in the tool.

Project GHG Boundary:  The Project GHG Boundary is the list of all sources and pools of GHG emissions that a project impacts, quantifies, and ultimately credits. VM0042 requires projects to consider project impacts to all of the sources and pools listed in Columns A and B of the 'Tool' tab. Fill out the Net Project Impact column with your best estimate for only the GHG sources and pools that you expect your project activity to impact. It is ok for some GHG sources and pools to be blank or to have a negative Net Project Impact. Make sure you pay attention to units - they are metric tonnes of CO2-equivalents for each GHG source and pool.

Uncertainty Deductions:  VM0042 requires that projects conservatively account for uncertainties in the credit values calculated for certain GHG sources/pools. Uncertainty deductions typically range between 20 and 50%. This is an editable value, but we enforce a minimum 20% uncertainty deduction in line with our experience from previous projects using this methodology.

Leakage Deductions:  Leakage deductions can occur if the project is expected to increase GHG emissions beyond the project area. They are only applied to the soil organic carbon. They are typically small (0 - 10%) for most projects but can be large for some projects.

Non-permanence Buffer Deductions:  Non-permanence buffer deductions are applied to all GHG pools to account for the risk that credits from these pools may be reversed. The deduction percentage can be estimated during the PIN stage but is ultimately calculated using Verra's AFOLU Non-permanence Risk Tool v4.2. It has a minimum value of 15%.