Living Carbon Jigawa
Established in August 2021, Living Carbon Jigawa is an agribusiness pilot intervention on regenerative farming funded through the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)-funded Partnering for Accelerated Transitions (PACT) Programme.
It is being developed as part of a wider programme of work being managed by Tetra Tech - LINKS–Powering Economic Growth in Northern Nigeria, a project funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Organisation working across high potential pro-poor value chains to make them productive, competitive and investable and to mobilize investment in them.
A major focus of the agribusiness pilot intervention is Nigeria’s adherence to an agricultural model that is no longer fit to meet longer-term needs and the challenge of accessing the financial investment required to overhaul the system of farming principles and practices along regenerative agricultural lines and address the negative spiral of deteriorating soil fertility and disease that currently besets the sector.
Results-based financing at a scale that is sufficient to deliver such a transformative change is available if the international markets for carbon offsets can be accessed but requires a level of capacity and infrastructure which is currently undeveloped in Nigeria. In particular, mobilisation of carbon finance requires independent certification which in turn requires the development of IT systems and data platforms for monitoring, reporting and verification purposes, coordination with farmers and off-takers and the development of locally-appropriate benefit-sharing systems and models.
Living Carbon Jigawa will identify, test and define the key steps and success factors for mobilising climate finance for the development of regenerative agriculture in the context of Nigeria. In addition to designing, facilitating, capturing and sharing the learning from the implementing of a strategy to develop and register an investable carbon project in the project area based on a joint venture between the Regen Ag implementation partners, Carbon-Plus Capital (CPC) will also support the other partners – the Centre for Dryland Agriculture, Regen Farm, LINKS – with technical advice on the development of protocols for monitoring of GHG emissions and on-site verification of GHG emissions.
Niger Delta Low Carbon Growth Initiative
The Niger Delta Low Carbon Growth Initiative is cross-sector partnership established in 2014 with the aim of building a platform for stakeholder analysis and engagement on the challenges of low carbon development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A founder of the Initiative alongside the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment, Carbon-Plus Capital is working through its Nigerian joint venture Eco Delta Services in a partnership with UK-based international environmental NGO The Conservation Foundation on a three-year project to establish the Initiative as a fully independent programme.
Working under the auspices of the Initiative, the partners are collaborating on the development of a pipeline of low-carbon investment projects designed to place the economy of the Niger Delta on a sustainable, socially-productive trajectory. With a focus on markets for ecosystem services, certified commodities and low-carbon and renewable energy services, in 2018 we completed feasibility assessments for two projects. The first is a partnership between Eco Delta Services and Shell Petroleum Development Company on the development of an enterprise to deliver electricity and cooking gas to households and businesses in off-grid communities based on the utilization of associated petroleum gas from oil fields that would otherwise be flared. The second is a partnership between Eco Delta Services and Napier Renewables on an enterprise to deliver electricity to households and businesses in off-grid communities based on the bio-gas produced from waste agricultural biomass.
Renewable Energy To the Tea Sector in Western Kenya
Carbon-Plus Capital is working in partnership with The Conservation Foundation, Rainforest Alliance and Enso-Impact on the development of a project to promote the uptake of renewable energy solutions to energy use among businesses and households in the tea-growing landscapes of Western Kenya.
Through research and development, the partners found that creating pellets made of various mixed natural by-products could replace the wood currently being used on both an industry and domestic level. We are now implementing a social enterprise based on the production and supply of pellets on a scalable level not only as fuel to the country’s tea-processing factories but also providing tea farmers and other rural households with clean, toxic free cooking fuel.
Niassa REDD-plus & Climate Resilience Initiative
Carbon-Plus Capital is working in partnership with Fauna & Flora International (FFI) on the development of a REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) project based on Niassa National Reserve, a 4.2 million hectare conservation area supporting 3.4 million hectares of miombo woodland with significant carbon storage potential.
Private capital will finance a range of activities to address causes of emissions from deforestation and degradation including fire management and improved agricultural management. These activities are being designed and developed in line with state and provincial government and local community needs and the objectives of sustainable, low carbon development.
At 42,000 square kilometres – the size of Denmark – Niassa National Reserve is one of Africa’s largest and most undeveloped wild areas. It is home to thousands of elephant, hippopotamus, sable antelope, zebra and other iconic African species, including the second largest population of endangered African wild dog and one of only five populations of lion numbering more than a thousand members.
Since 1998, management supported by FFI has progressively put Niassa back on the map with policies on adaptive environmental management and community-centred development in cooperation with the Reserve’s 35,000 local inhabitants.