By 
Jane Egerton-Idehen, MD/CEO, Nigerian Communications Satellite Ltd (NIGCOMSAT) shares insights on how a startup is helping farmers make their farms environmentally friendly.
This is one of the startups in our Accelerator portfolio that prompted me to further educate myself on this topic. Are you aware of the concept of Carbon Markets and Carbon credits ? Do you know about the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI)?
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Carbon credits are a way to help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) released into the atmosphere. When companies, organizations, or countries want to offset their emissions, they can purchase carbon credits, which represent a reduction or removal of one ton of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e) from the atmosphere.
Reducing carbon footprint
Carbon markets, are platforms where carbon credits are bought and sold. The idea is to incentivize businesses and governments to reduce their carbon footprint by either cutting their own emissions or by supporting these emission-reducing projects.
While this concept has sparked some debate with critics arguing about its effectiveness. African Nations because of their vast greenery are pushing forward with establishing carbon markets to finance sustainable development. The goal is to harness Africa’s natural potential for climate solutions while creating economic opportunities.
CarbonEx a startup in our NIGCOMSAT accelerator programme is building a platform to enable this.
CarbonEx helps farmers make their farms environmentally friendly. This excellent solution, pioneered by Ogah Abeni, uses special farming techniques to capture carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gasses that causes climate change.
Farmers can earn carbon credits, which are like certificates that prove a certain amount of carbon dioxide has been captured and stored by the farm. Their platform measures and verifies the amount of carbon captured by the farms to ensure the carbon credits are accurate and trustworthy. Once verified, they register it on their registry and have it validated by third-party organizations globally, like Verra and Gold Standard and can be traded in a Carbon Market.
NIGERIAN COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE LIMITED (NIGCOMSAT) is working with CarbonEX to provide connectivity to these rural and remote farms to track and trade their carbon credits. We have mentors like Alexander Tiemo, a mentor in the programme who has opened up his network to further enhance their visibility and fine-tune their concept/service
Watch NIGCOMSAT Accelerator: Startups Experience Video
Learn more about them on LinkedIn and Facebook: CarbonEx.
We are proud of their partnership Crown Dynasty cooperative farmers and Global suitability future network.
Follow Jane Egerton-Idehen @LinkedIn
