Reporting Impact

LENs does not issue carbon or biodiversity credits or certificates – intentionally. This is because we believe this is not in the interests of farmers – either from a financial or business management perspective. Carbon credits are also unlikely to benefit contract farmers with time-limited certainty on their access to land. A significant proportion of farms participating in LENs are contract and tenant farmers.

Secondly, we know that a transition to resilient landscapes requires much deeper and layered collaboration involving multiple stakeholders engaged in various supply chains. Carbon credits schemes are limited in scope, as they require a clear separation from other initiatives to ensure additionality criteria can be met. In LENs our focus is on systemic change, and helping all stakeholders in the network to build resilience and reduce risk.

Methodology

We started to collect data and measure outcomes on every single participating farm in 2023, trialling multiple different carbon calculators and soil organic carbon models. With support from 3Keel, LENs also developed the first carbon outcomes allocation methodology – which allows the reporting of emissions reductions to multiple LENs funders in a way that all parties can confidently report data that tallies with their operational boundaries, does not double count benefits, or result in misleading claims.

LENs needs to provide farmers and funders with a high degree of confidence on the environmental benefits reported to them. Using the lessons from this first pilot, we produced in 2024 our very first MRV protocol. This document details the technical basis and methodologies used for measuring our impact.

The protocol has been externally reviewed by independent experts specialised in environmental measurement and carbon accounting. Our 2025 methodology is being developed and will be available from spring 2025, in time for the 2025 data collection campaign.

LENs MRV aligns with relevant existing and emerging standards and frameworks, including:

• The Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Land Sector and Removals Guidance (LSRG)
• The Science Based Targets initiative’s Forest, Land and Agriculture Guidance (FLAG)
• SAI Platform Regenerating Together Framework (RTF)

Metrics

Below is the full list of metrics that LENs will be reporting for every participating farm in 2025. Additional soil health metrics such as soil nutrients, pH, soil texture, VESS and earthworm counts are offered to new farms joining LENs.

How is data collected?

Data collection is carried out by independent surveyors who visit each farm at a time compatible with busy farming schedules.

These survey organisations have been selected for their appropriate expertise, are familiar with the region, are trusted by farmers, and have gone through the detailed LENs training and onboarding programme.

To remain pragmatic and accessible in multiple countries, our measurement systems use a combination of Cool Farm Tool/Platform, xFarm data technologies and additional models and calculators. Our team of data analysts collate this information centrally for quality assurance and processing into custom-made reports.

Each year, we use feedback from farmers and supply aggregators from the data campaign to improve the next campaign, ensuring we remain adaptive and responsive to the needs of our network and to emerging trends and technologies.

Reporting leadership and innovation