Standards providing assurance of soil health outcomes to facilitate investment in and adoption of soil health improvements. Early adopter pilots are underway.

SCI is developing an outcomes & science-based performance standard and measurement framework-built by and for brands, investors and farmers. The Standard seeks to provide a standardized way to monitor progress on soil health and carbon sequestration improvements.  This Initiative was identified by this group of leaders as a necessary keystone missing from the current system that was needed for accelerating investment into measurable on farm progress in carbon sequestration and soil health across a broad spectrum of agricultural production systems. The Standard is agnostic to other certifications, and flexible enough to adapt to scientific and technological advances and enhance other standards already in use by farmers and food companies. For more information, visit the Soil Carbon Index webpage. 

Pamela has over twenty-five years of program management and multi-stakeholder facilitation experience, with the last 15 years focused on promoting environmental and corporate social responsibility in the electronics industry via standards development and stakeholder processes. She is currently the Director of Clean Electronic Production Network (CEPN) – a multi-stakeholder, cross-industry collaboration that launched in 2016. CEPN serves as a platform for collaborative innovation where diverse stakeholders – including technology suppliers, brands, labor and environmental advocates, governments and other leading experts – work together to understand, address, and eliminate worker exposures to toxic chemicals in electronics production.

Previously, Pamela was Green Electronics Council’s Director of Standards Management, designing and managing multi-stakeholder processes to maintain the sustainability standards on the EPEAT Registry for product categories including personal computers and displays, servers, imaging equipment and PV modules and inverters. Before joining GEC, Pamela was an independent consultant, with projects including management and facilitation of the development of the ground-breaking Outdoor Industry Association and European Outdoor Group Eco Index Green Standard.

Green America teamed up with author and farmer Acadia Tucker to answer questions about Climate Victory Gardening. In this blog, you'll get to know Acadia, what motivates her, and why she's such a great candidate for answering your questions.

Acadia Tucker is a regenerative farmer, climate activist, and author of Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits & vegetables, and Growing Good Food: A citizen's guide to backyard carbon farming. Her books are a call to action for citizen gardeners everywhere, and lay the groundwork for planting an organic, regenerative garden. For her, this is gardening as if our future depends on it.

Before becoming an author, Acadia started a four-season organic market garden in Washington state inspired by farming pioneers Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier. While managing the farm, Acadia grew 200 different food crops before heading back to school at the University of British Columbia to complete a Masters in Land and Water Systems. Today, she lives in Maine and New Hampshire with her farm dog, Nimbus, and grows hops to support locally-sourced craft beer in New England, when she isn't raising perennials in her own backyard.

Take a peek into Acadia's life with this excerpt from her book Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits & vegetables. Visit our Climate Victory Gardening FAQ to learn practical skills and become more familiar with carbon sequestration and growing healthy food (and soil!), with answers from Acadia and other experts. 

It’s 6:30 a.m. and the sun has been up for a little less than an hour. I roll out of bed and quickly guzzle a cup of coffee. Then I slip on my moss-green muck boots, tattered from many battles with blackberry brambles, and take the well-worn path through the woods to the farm. 

Every morning I open a greenhouse filled with beds of peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. I want to do this before the temperature inside the greenhouse hits 85 degrees and the plants become stressed and thirsty. This morning, when I roll up the plastic sides of the greenhouse, I feel a wave of intense heat escape into the cool air. I check the thermometer inside—90 degrees—and remind myself to wake up earlier tomorrow.

Fortunately, the leaves haven’t started to wilt. I breathe a sigh of relief and move on to my morning routine. I start in the back field where a patch of garlic leaves rustle in the soft breeze. I pull weeds and check plants for the dreaded bean beetle. Then I scan the hedgerows of raspberries and currants for the succulent ripe fruits. After admiring the straight rows of potatoes, kale, and beets resting on a bed of straw, I turn on the irrigation system. Now it’s time to head to the apple orchard where I’ll watch the wildflowers vibrate as hungry bees hunt for nectar. Over at the compost pile, I plunge my hand into the heap to feel its heat.

I love to grow food, plain and simple, and can’t imagine doing anything else. When I started farming in Washington at age 21, I focused on practical concerns: finding some land to lease, figuring out which crops to grow, and finding enough customers to buy my food. What I didn’t give much thought to was climate change. However, after just a few years working this highly weather-dependent job, I noticed longer frost-free seasons, more intense storms, and more frequent droughts.

Alarmed, I went back to school to study soil management and how it can be a meaningful buffer against weather extremes. When I returned to farming, I started covering my fields every spring with a generous layer of compost. Then I’d lay down another protective layer, this time of straw or wood chips, to keep the compost from washing away and prevent new weeds from sprouting.

Feeding my farm this rich organic material quickly converted the light brown, sandy soil into a dark brown, fluffy bed for my plants. Water sank in instead of pooling on the surface. My plants weathered the heavy rains and occasional droughts of the Pacific Northwest. When I moved back east, I saw how these same methods helped my crops thrive despite New England’s harsh winter storms. Eventually, I started to think of myself as a “regenerative farmer.”

Regenerative Farming is Pretty Much What It Sounds Like

Regenerative farming is often described as an effort to mimic how nature grows food. Think of a forest that has sustained wild berries, watercress, cherry trees, and other long-lasting perennials for centuries. How does this happen? Leaves and other organic material fall to the ground, protecting the soil from erosion. Insects, fungi, bacteria, and other critters thrive in undisturbed soil and incorporate the fallen material into the ground through their daily activities. This cycle builds a fluffy layer of topsoil packed with nutrients, which supports more plant growth. It’s a process that replenishes ecosystems the world over, from forests to fields of wild grains and grasses.

Farmers who take their cue from this process minimize tilling, allowing the healthy microorganisms and bugs that enrich the soil to go about their lives undisturbed. These farmers cover their fields in truckloads of compost. And they plant nutrient-rich cover crops, like Red Clover and Buckwheat. They don’t violently break up the soil’s texture through plowing. They don’t use a lot of chemicals. Their reward? Nutrient-rich topsoil, better water retention, and heartier plants— plus savings on fertilizer, water, and pesticides.

These cost savings help explain why regenerative farming is springing up all over, even in soybean country where industrial farming has long been seen as the most efficient. Some farmers are also motivated by another by-product of organically enriched soil: it draws excess carbon out of the air and stores it underground. This ability to capture greenhouse gases is why many experts believe regenerative agriculture, also known as carbon farming, could play an important role in fighting climate change.

Plants are the ultimate and, dare I say, cheapest way to suck excess carbon dioxide out of the air. Almost all atmospheric carbon passes through plants during photosynthesis, the process that turns carbon, sunlight, and water into sugars and carbohydrates. Plant roots release carbon-rich sugars, which feed organisms in the soil. In exchange, these critters make nutrients in the soil available to the plant. As plants die back each winter, they drop leaves and branches and even the roots die off.

Over time this debris decomposes, adding even more nutrients and carbon to the soil. There’s evidence to suggest that when living soil organisms die they end up forming even more organic matter than plant residue.The alliance between plants and soil organisms helps lock carbon in topsoil, producing the dark organic matter every gardener lusts for and turning the very ground we stand on into a giant carbon sponge.

Increasing the carbon stored in soil helps to maximize photosynthesis so plants can draw down even more carbon dioxide and trap it underground. Moreover, soil rich in carbon feeds mycorrhizae, a vast network of fungi that releases glomalin. Glomalin is a sticky, gum-like substance that binds together particles of sand, silt, and clay, creating a soil structure that locks in moisture and holds on to nutrients. Plants raised in favorable conditions like this, with easy access to water and nutrients, are sturdier and more resilient. This positive cycle is how nature works when we don’t interfere.

Heavy use of synthetic fertilizers, growing just one crop over large areas, exposing the soil to erosion from wind and water, and tilling are all mainstays of conventional farming, and reduce the amount of carbon in our soil. Instead, they release more greenhouse gases into the air. In 2011, farms emitted six billion tons of greenhouse gases. That’s about 13 percent of all greenhouse emissions worldwide, according to the World Resources Institute.

We can turn this around. By adopting regenerative practices, farms could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate of about one ton of carbon dioxide for every acre, according to data reviewed by soil expert Eric Toensmeier. The potential benefits are enormous, as spelled out in a 2014 study from The Rodale Institute. Citing data from farming systems and pasture trials, it concludes that we could sequester more than 100 percent of annual CO2 emissions worldwide if we start growing food this way. 

The authors write: “Soil carbon sequestration through regenerative agriculture is a known, proven, technical remedy to climate change: it gives humanity the necessary time to decarbonize.” Experts agree more study is needed but there’s no question that even a small increase in soil carbon can improve crop resilience, reduce chemical use, conserve water on a large scale, and draw down carbon.

The fact that carbon farming could make a difference is both exciting and frustrating. We are, after all, dealing with an agricultural system that does not prioritize health, environmental, or climate concerns. But farmers aren’t the only ones who can opt for a regenerative approach. Many of us have our own patches of soil we can tend to—in yards, community gardens, even pots. 

The Promise of Backyard Carbon Farming

I started my own garden after moving from Washington State to New Hampshire to grow hops for local breweries. When I moved, I left behind a farm where we’d grown 200 different food crops. In New England, I so badly missed having fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs within easy reach that I started my garden almost immediately.

While fewer and fewer people are farmers by profession, many Americans are growing food. In fact, 35 percent of us, or 42 million households, report growing some of our own food, according to the National Gardening Association of America. Just imagine what could happen if more of us took up regenerative gardening. Not only would we have ready access to nutritious, local food. We could help heal the planet.

Perennials are a natural choice for regenerative gardeners. These sturdy, long-lived plants are anchored by extensive root systems that help them find water and nutrients deep in the soil. Deep roots also give these plants staying power when they’re buffeted by heavy winds, rains, and snow. In addition, having the same plants in the same place for years makes it easier for all the soil-enriching organisms—the bacteria, fungi, and bugs—to gather and multiply.

My favorite time of year is growing season and I end every day with a stroll through my garden. I watch the sunchokes lining the cedar fence track the last bit of sunshine. I look over my tomatoes once more before rolling down the greenhouse walls and tucking them in for the night. I grab a fistful of basil on my way back to the house. And I luxuriate in knowing I’ll see these plants again next year. 

Weather, soil type, and any number of other variables can make gardening complicated. I’ve done what I can to keep it simple. I want to make regenerative gardening easy because cultivating even a little bit of carbon-rich soil can make a big difference. Eric Toensmeier estimates that his own tiny carbon-rich backyard garden, about a tenth of an acre, can offset the carbon emissions of one American adult per year. For me, that says one thing: let’s grow some good food. It’s time.

  

Green Business Network director Fran Teplitz submitted the following letter to the Natural Resources Committee of the California Assembly in support of new “Skip the Slip” legislation. The bill was inspired by Green America’s Skip the Slip campaign urging businesses to use electronic receipts rather than toxic and wasteful paper receipts.

Progress! 

On March 25, 2019 the Skip the Slip bill in California, AB 161, passed through the Natural Resources Committee in the State Assembly and will next move on to the Privacy & Consumer Protection Committee.

March 21, 2019

Assemblymember Laura Friedman
Chair, Assembly Committee on Natural Resources
1020 N Street, Room 164
Sacramento, CA 95814

RE: AB 161 (Ting): Skip the Slip – Support

Dear Assemblymember Friedman,

On behalf of Green America’s Green Business Network, I am pleased to support AB 161, which would reduce waste, save water and trees, and reduce California’s carbon footprint by encouraging consumers to use electronic receipts instead of paper receipts.

The Green Business Network, with 2,000 business members nationwide and 262 business members in California, represents many smaller businesses, including retailers. These businesses are leaders in innovation and in greening their business practices including recycling, offering organic and non-toxic products, reducing their use of materials, and incorporating clean energy. These businesses also are experts in meeting the needs of their customers, including offering customers the choice of greener options that help build customer loyalty.

The Skip the Slip Bill is a commonsense measure to enhance sustainability and customer choice.  Currently, many retailers provide customers with a paper receipt, whether the customer wants it or not.  Skip the Slip puts the power in the hands of consumers to determine if they want a paper receipt or just an electronic receipt. Smart businesses are already moving in this direction and are finding that it meets customer needs and reduces business costs over time.  This bill will place California in a leadership issue on this important issue.

According to the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), California exports nearly one third of its recycled material to other countries every year. With recent developments in the international recycling market, exporting California’s recycled material has become unsustainable and the state must find ways to reduce waste.

The Ecology Center’s More than you Bargained For: BPS and BPA in Receipts found that 93 percent of paper receipts are coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or Bisphenol-S (BPS), chemicals which the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned from baby bottles because they are known to disrupt hormones, causing cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental issues.

Additionally, Green America’s own report, Skip the Slip: Environmental Costs & Human Health Risks of Paper Receipts with Proposed Solutions, found that over 3 million trees and 9 billion gallons of water in the United States are used to create proof of purchase receipts. These receipts generate 302 million pounds of waste and 4 billion pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2), the equivalent of more than 425,000 cars on the road.

Today there are many alternatives to paper receipts that retailers are already using. Data from a point-of-sale platform that offers digital receipts shows that their sellers send over 10 million digital receipts each month.

AB 161 would require all businesses to provide proof of purchase receipts electronically unless the customer asks for a physical copy, starting on January 1, 2022. This gives each customer the option of receiving a paper-based receipt, instead of receiving a paper receipt whether they want it or not.  Many customers will choose to “skip the slip” leading to less paper waste.

Reducing the number of paper receipts that are printed will not only vastly cut down the amount of waste that we produce, it will also save millions of trees and billions of gallons of water each year. For these reasons, we are supporting AB 161.

Sincerely,
Fran Teplitz
Executive Co-director, Green America
Director; Green America’s Green Business Network

When I first started growing food, the farm I managed in the Pacific Northwest had patches of sandy, dry soil interspersed with waterlogged, hard packed clay. During the scorching hot summers, my thirsty plants shriveled. When the skies dumped rain the water pooled, flooding my crops. Those first couple of years on the farm were my first experience dealing with climate extremes, and my soil was not equipped for the job.

Worried about the outlook for my farm, I returned to school to study soil and water management, and did a deep dive into how global warming is changing the way we raise food. The experience helped turn me into a very different kind of grower.

When I returned I started covering my beds every spring with a generous layer of compost. On top of that, I laid down another protective layer of straw or grass clippings mixed with shredded leaves, to keep the compost from washing away and prevent new weeds from sprouting. Over the course of the growing season I dosed my soil with this potent combination as needed. It didn’t take time to notice a difference.

In just over a year, the rich organic material had converted the light brown, sandy soil into a dark brown, fluffy bed for my plants. The hard packed clay loosened and become more friable. Water sank instead of sitting on the surface. I swear my food is tastier and more resilient. But what really excites me about my job as a soil farmer is knowing the role it plays in cooling our environment.

The more organic matter in the soil, the more excess carbon dioxide it can absorb. Increasing the carbon stored in soil helps to maximize photosynthesis so plants can draw down even more carbon dioxide and trap it underground.

Moreover, soil rich in carbon feeds mycorrhizae, a vast network of fungi that releases glomalin. Glomalin is a sticky, gum-like substance that binds together particles of sand, silt, and clay, creating a soil structure that conserves moisture and holds onto nutrients. Plants raised in favorable conditions like this, with easy access to moisture and nutrients, grow sturdier and more resilient. This positive cycle is how nature works when we don’t interfere.

By adopting soil-building, regenerative practices, farms could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate of about one ton of carbon dioxide for every acre, according to data reviewed by soil expert Eric Toensmeier. The potential benefits are enormous, as spelled out in a 2014 study from Rodale Institute. Citing data from farming systems and pasture trials, it concludes that we could sequester more than 100 percent of annual CO2 emissions worldwide if we start growing food this way.

But even if you have nothing more than a sliver of land you can do something right now to battle the most significant ecological threat we’ve ever faced. Carbon farming expert Eric Toensmeier estimates that his own tiny carbon-rich backyard garden, about a tenth of an acre, can offset the carbon emissions of one American adult per year. So let’s all start nurturing the soil. It’s time.

Here’s how you can build (and maintain) healthy soil

Test your soil

The occasional soil test is a helpful gauge of what’s working and whether you need to pile on more compost or other amendments, so I’ve built soil testing into my annual routine and recommend you do, too. If you’re starting a garden from scratch, taking measure of your soil’s acidity and nutrient levels can get you off to the right start. Most state universities can test for acidity, organic matter, and nutrients. That said, testing the quality of your soil isn’t absolutely necessary for regenerative gardeners if you treat it with a healthy dose of compost and mulch every year. And if getting a test seems like a hassle, and stands in the way of you getting started on your own garden, don’t bother. Better to just get started.

You can easily keep tabs on the health of your soil each season by grabbing a handful of moist dirt from your garden and squeezing it. If it crumbles, your soil is too dry and sandy and you’ll have to add more organic matter. If it holds its shape even after some poking, the soil contains too much clay and you’ll have to mix in peat, compost, or lime to break it up and improve drainage. If your clod holds its shape and falls apart only after poking it,  then your probably have rich, well-drained loam soil, which most plants love.

Feed your soil

Adding organic matter is the most important step you can take to build healthy soil. Organic matter is anything living or dead, animals or plants, and the perfect food for soil organisms. So, I feed my soil with compost.

Throughout the season I build up my compost pile with straw, grass clippings, leaves, kitchen scraps, plants, pretty much any raw organic material, and let it sit. This creates a breeding ground for bacteria and microbes that make quick work of breaking down the materials into nutrients that plants need. The result is black gold packed with organic matter and plenty of the trace minerals - like iron, zinc, and manganese - that are left out of synthetic fertilizers.

Each spring I spread one to two inches of this amazing stuff over the entire garden, gently mixing it into the first few inches of the soil. But if you forget to feed your soil during the busy spring it’s fine to add it later on, and particularly poor patches of land benefit from getting it throughout the season.

Protect your soil

Mulch is a carbon farmer’s best friend. Spreading mulch over the soil each year accomplishes many goals at once. For starters, mulch helps trap water so you won’t need to water your plants as much. Mulch also fights against weeds so you spend less time hunched over pulling them out of the ground (you can tell how much I like weeding) and more time enjoying the fruits of your labor. But the most important aspect of mulch is the way protects the soil.

I add it in the spring, to prevent the healthy soil I’ve worked so hard to build from washing away. And in the fall, to keep nutrients in the ground and protect plant roots from becoming exposed and vulnerable to drying out and freezing in the winter.

Mulch works best when applied in an even layer, two to four inches deep. Make sure to keep it a few inches from the base of your plants so it doesn’t rot them. I spread wood chips along my pathways to prevent hard-packed soil, and a layer of shredded leaves and grass clipping or straw on my plant beds. But you can use pretty much anything from plain cardboard or newspaper to coco fiber or shredded tree waste from your local municipality. I much prefer organic materials, which can be broken down by soil microbes, rather than synthetic mulches like landscape fabric, which does nothing for soil health. The best organic mulches are readily available, cheap, and easy to spread.

Have a gardening question? Send it to: ClimateVictoryGarden@GreenAmerica.org.

Or, post it on the Climate Victory Garden facebook group.

Visit our FAQ page to learn practical skills and become more familiar with carbon sequestration and growing healthy food (and soil!). 

Written by Acadia Tucker, a regenerative farmer, climate activist, and author of Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits & vegetables and Growing Good Food: A citizen's guide to backyard carbon farming.

For nearly a century, Amalgamated Bank has served as America’s socially responsible bank. Rooted firmly in the labor movement, we are a champion of working people and proudly support the forward-thinking organizations, companies and individuals across the country who are working to make the world more just, compassionate and sustainable. We are America’s largest certified B Corp bank and a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. We don’t just have a mission. We are on a mission: to support those who support others, to invest in progressive and impactful causes and to advocate true financial opportunity for all.

Our majority area of impact is through our social and environmental products and services. As a green leader in the financial industry, we recognize that all people and businesses have a role to play in helping build a clean and just economy. We are proud of offer products and programs that align with our mission such as: 

• We have pledged to double our portfolio to environmentally and socially responsible companies by the year 2020 from $350 million to $700 million.
• We offer personal products such as the Give Back Checking/Savings accounts, Donate the Change ATM card; Solar HELOC Loan, for example. Through Amalgamated Investment Services, we offer investment opportunities designed to help the bottom line and create lasting change, including Aria: 100% Fossil Free Portfolio — Contains no investments in coal companies, oil and gas producers or fossil-fired utilities 
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