Building scientific and industry consensus on a monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) protocol for enhanced weathering (EW) in agriculture

Enhanced Weathering (EW) as a pathway for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is gaining substantial momentum and projects are already being deployed at small scales around the world. In order to ensure the efficacy, additionality and safety of EW in agricultural settings, Isometric has developed a comprehensive and broadly-applicable monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) protocol. This protocol was constructed with substantial input from industry, academia and non-profit representatives in order to promote both rigor and implementability of MRV practices to EW projects. The MRV approach we propose focuses substantially on direct measurement to further the industry-wide objective of constraining EW (and the uncertainties associated with it) in agriculture systems before scaling. Through direct measurements in each step of the EW process, we aim to build databases that can be used in the future to drive the development of streamlined MRV approaches that are low in uncertainty, easy to implement, and cost-effective at large scales. In this presentation, we will highlight the unique aspects of our protocol and will detail the iterative and multi-stakeholder consensus-building process that we administered to construct and implement the protocol. Ultimately, the goal of our protocols is to support MRV that is grounded in the best-available science, is iterable, and that improves when new findings emerge. We intend to apply learnings from this EW-specific process to future versions of this protocol as well as to protocols for additional CDR pathways.