Carbon Removal FAQ

The first type of Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRTs) on the Nori platform are being generated from agricultural projects that can store carbon dioxide in soils. We are starting here because of the crisis of soil carbon loss, the immense potential to store carbon in soils, and the unique features of the Nori design which enable risk mitigation against carbon losses and lower verification costs that do not exist in traditional offset markets. Through more regenerative farming practices there is a theoretical capacity to store ten billion tonnes of CO2 per year. By creating a financial instrument that supports growers to increase carbon dioxide in their soils, we’re also advancing a number of great co-benefits like drought resistance, reduced runoff pollution, and an overall improvement of soil health.

You’ll receive a digital certificate of ownership for the carbon removal credits you paid for. This certificate will show the number of carbon removals purchased, the project supported, and any additional information provided by the supplier. All these records are registered permanently on a blockchain database, so you will have lasting proof of your purchase — and protection against your carbon being re-sold or traded.

While all software applications and providers are susceptible to hacking, we have taken a few important measures to decrease that risk and augment our security. Our approach to dealing with that risk is two-fold:

• Our transparency with completely open-source software allows the public to audit our code and report on any bugs discovered in a responsible manner.
• We are following industry-standard practices on securing private data in ways that mitigate damage if an attacker is ever able to breach our data storage.

Nori is on a mission to reverse climate change by making it as simple as possible to pay people to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Nori is building the open source market infrastructure to allow for carbon removal projects to measure and monetize their activity. Our voluntary marketplace, based on blockchain technology, will enable carbon removal suppliers to connect directly with buyers, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Nori is unique in the carbon market space because we are focused 100% on carbon removal from the atmosphere. Paying people not to cut down existing trees is not a model that would qualify for Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRTs) in our market. Reversing climate change requires both decreasing current emission rates, as well as removing the 1.5 trillion tonnes of excess CO2 that's already up in the atmosphere. Many companies and initiatives focus on reducing present and future emissions, but Nori is the only market that deals exclusively in removing past emissions. Nori allows buyers to pay for NRTs in a round-robin-style queue as they’re entered into the marketplace. This commoditizes the removal of CO2 and removes the costly matchmaking process that occurs in traditional carbon offset markets.

Nori is also different from existing carbon markets by taking a software approach to reduce costs for suppliers and buyers through streamlining data collection. By accounting for the ownership of the NRTs on the blockchain, Nori eliminates the double-counting problem that has plagued past attempts at creating healthy carbon offsets markets. Nori’s cost structure is substantially different from traditional carbon offset markets. We do not charge fees to develop new methodologies, and only ever charges suppliers a one time registration fee to list projects.

Nori partners with companies that make carbon quantification tools (CQTs) with rigorous scientific backing in order to model how much carbon was removed. In the case of farmlands, these models work by comparing farmers' new sustainable practices to their previous farming methods. Our partner Soil Metrics uses a USDA-approved model to run thousands of scenarios to determine within a reasonable level of confidence how much carbon a farmer has stored in their soils. This is one of the simplest and most accurate methods for counting carbon removals available today.

A Nori Carbon Removal Tonne or NRT represents approximately one tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been removed from the atmosphere for a minimum of 10 years. Once completing the Nori enrollment process, a supplier of NRTs can register them on the Nori marketplace. NRTs are sold directly to individuals and organizations seeking to mitigate carbon emissions. This way, anyone can participate in reversing climate change.

There are several ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They fall into three main categories: natural, industrial, and hybrid.

Ecological carbon removal can be achieved through land and ocean management techniques. These approaches often present co-benefits that extend beyond carbon dioxide removed through regenerating or improving natural assets.

• Soil Carbon Storage refers to techniques that can increase the organic matter (carbon) stored in soils on agricultural and managed lands through cropping and grazing, typically under the paradigm of regenerative agriculture.
• Afforestation is the establishment of forests or stands of trees where there previously was no forest cover. Carbon dioxide is captured by photosynthesis and is stored in the biomass of trees.
• Blue Carbon refers to carbon captured by the world’s oceans and coastal ecosystems. The carbon captured by living organisms in oceans is stored in the form of biomass and sediments from mangroves, salt marshes, seagrasses, seaweed, and algae.

Industrial carbon removal refers to engineered solutions that use synthetic and mechanical processes to remove and store carbon.

• Direct air capture with mineral geologic sequestrationuses machines to extract and concentrate carbon dioxide to store in mineral carbonates with no economic value. This can be done under the seabed.
• Direct air capture into products uses machines to extract and concentrate carbon dioxide into products ranging from concrete, polymers, graphene, and other materials containing carbon dioxide.

Hybrid carbon removal is a combination of ecological and industrial processes.

• Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) relies on biomass to remove carbon dioxide, generate energy at a power plant, and produce gaseous emissions which can be captured and stored underground.
• Biochar relies on biomass to remove carbon dioxide and generate energy by using a process that starves the fuel of oxygen thereby leaving behind a carbon-rich residue that when spread over soil sequesters the CO2 in the ground.
• Biosequestration in materials refers to any approach that leverages biology to store carbon in products ranging from carpets to clothes to building materials.
• Enhanced weathering is a chemical process that occurs on land or in ocean that spreads minerals. Certain types of waste rock from mining operations can be exposed to carbon dioxide and combine with it to create mineralized carbon storage.

Since the Industrial Revolution, humankind has burned fossil fuels to produce energy which release greenhouse gases. Despite our understanding of the clear linkage between excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere/oceans and global climate change, humans have been unable to stop emitting. While reducing and replacing carbon emissions are key components to slowing down the flow of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years—warming the planet—the only way to stop the most severe effects of climate change is by balancing the total stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This can only be achieved through carbon removal. Carbon reduction is a start, but it’s simply not enough.

This can be viewed as an arithmetic problem. We are putting too many greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and not taking enough out. Carbon removal removes excess emissions from the atmosphere, helping us to avoid climate tipping points and ultimately reverse climate change.

Nori works with independent, third party verifiers with experience and accreditation working on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction projects. Farmers are paired with a verifier to review their carbon removal data and supply any additional evidence required, and the verifier submits a report of their findings to Nori. When sold, every certificate of carbon removal will be attached with a copy of this report.

A Nori Carbon Removal Tonne (NRT) is a digital asset—an electronic certificate—that is stored on the Ethereum blockchain in the Nori application. One NRT represents approximately one tonne of CO2-equivalent heat-trapping gas that has been removed from the atmosphere and stored in an industrial, terrestrial, subsurface, or aquatic reservoir.

Blockchain allows for a number of new opportunities to establish a market for carbon removal. Because a Nori Carbon Removal Tonne (NRT) can only be used once and is immediately retired, our blockchain system avoids the double counting which occurs in other traditional carbon offset markets. Furthermore, using a blockchain solution allows for complete transparency of the new type of carbon removal asset. Blockchain allows for substantially lower verification costs through automation and removing the many middlemen involved in traditional carbon removal transactions.

For more details check out this Medium post: Why a carbon removal market belongs on the blockchain..

Here are more details about why we chose the Ethereum blockchain specifically.

We do not. When you purchase NRTs, retirement of the credits is immediate and your certificate is permanently recorded on the blockchain. The carbon removals can not be unretired or resold.

100% of each tonne you pay for goes directly to supporting our suppliers, while Nori collects a 15% transaction fee to help keep the marketplace running. This not only rewards farmers for implementing sustainable farming practices, but provides further incentives for sustainable farmers to provide even more carbon removals in the future.

Yes, you can gift carbon removals — just purchase carbon removal with the recipient's name on it, then print or email the certificate when you're ready to gift it. Learn more here.

Currently, when your soil carbon sells in Nori's marketplace, you instantly receive USDC which you can immediately convert to cash.

Nori provides an additional income source to farmers who operate with regenerative practices. While carbon markets are emerging and a new commodity to consider, we believe that the value to farmers is not only in diversifying their income sources, but leaving the decision making and data ownership to the grower.

To start, we are piloting our marketplace with farms in the United States. We plan to work with farms in key markets outside the U.S. in the not-too-distant future, including Canada.

If it turns out that a farm that was claiming Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRTs) is no longer removing carbon dioxide, or the NRTs become invalid because, for instance, a supplier breaks a contract by tilling (which re-releases carbon dioxide), Nori has built a self-insurance mechanism that makes the buyers whole if this were to occur. Both suppliers and Nori will share in this risk, and we will use tokens held in reserve to automatically purchase new NRTs on behalf of the buyer in the amount of any overreported NRT numbers or leakage from changed practices.

Yes, Nori is working with farmers now. You can learn more on our Growers page.

Thank you for your interest in joining Nori's marketplace and your patience as we develop and refine the enrollment process.

No. We work with third-party verifiers who conform to our established methodology standards to verify carbon removal data.

NRTs are generated after a supplier has entered their farm data into the Nori app, run quantification to determine the incremental soil organic stock (SOC) gained from regenerative practices, verified these by a third party auditor, and signed an NRT agreement. Farm data is always owned by the farmer and is only used to run the Soil Metrics model and for Nori internal use.

There are many ways!

• Start by signing up for our newsletter, The Nori Wrap.
• Share our content from our website. From there you can access our articles, YouTube videos, videos, newsletters, and podcasts, 'Reversing Climate Change' and Carbon Removal Newsroom.

At the moment, no. In the future, our platform will enable anyone to propose a system to estimate and quantify carbon dioxide removal for any process to go through an open peer review system.