Carbon Auditing - what is your farm’s carbon footprint?

20 December 2019

The first step to reducing your farm’s carbon footprint is to understand what it is and where it comes from.

There are various tools you can use to assess the carbon footprint of your farm business. The popular (and free) options below have been designed to be straight‑forward to complete and will give a good indication of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and, in some cases, carbon sequestration on your farm. Some also suggest ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the farm.

If you work with an environment advisor as part of your farm management or business planning they may be able to help with completing and interpreting a farm carbon audit, but each of the tools mentioned here can also be completed by anyone who has access to farm records.

Collecting the data you will need for a carbon audit is usually the most time‑consuming part of the process. Each tool detailed below provides a data‑input guide for users to collate information from their farm records.

Here’s a quick summary of the information you will need before you start a farm carbon audit:

Cropping	Livestock	Other (often optional)
Harvested yield and marketable yield product weights	Herd or flock size	Land use change E.g. forestry, arable <-> grassland
Growing area; crop area and soil testing data	Feed and grazing	Tillage practices
Fertiliser applications: type and rate	Manure management	Cover cropping
Number of pesticide applications	Energy use (kWh and fuel use)	Waste management
Energy use (kWh and fuel use)	Transport of feed and other inputs	Building, machinery and materials E.g. maintenance, ground works
Optionally: transport: mode, weight of product and distance	Dairy output E.g. milk production, fat content, protein content	Distribution E.g.Transport, refrigeration, packing material
		Sequestration E.g. Woodland, hedgerow, field margins

Depending on the type of farming you do and the information you want from a carbon audit, one tool may be more suitable than another for your farm.

A more detailed comparison of these tools can be found in the Tool Comparison Table.

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