Brazil has the potential to become the leading country in carbon sequestration

Brazil has the potential to lead the emerging atmospheric carbon sequestration market – essential for achieving the goal of pushing global warming to a level below 1,5 to 2,0 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial period.

To achieve this, the country has a formidable reserve of 50 million hectares of reforestable land, with potential for spontaneous natural regeneration or assisted natural regeneration. And reforestation is, by far, the most effective way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

The consideration was made in the lecture “Entrepreneurship opportunities with ecological restoration, carbon market and nature-based solutions”, presented by Renato Crouzeilles, during the webinar “Ecosystem Services”, the third and final of the BIOTA Entrepreneurship Cycle, promoted by the FAPESP Program of Research in Characterization, Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (BIOTA-FAPESP), held on November 30, 2021.

Crouzeilles is a professor in the Postgraduate Program in Ecology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), a researcher affiliated with the International Institute for Sustainability (IIS) and executive director of the International Institute for Sustainability Australia.

His talk focused on the economic potential of environmental solutions, especially in the carbon sequestration market. “The voluntary carbon sequestration market is expected to grow up to 15 times from 2020 to 2030. And, by 2050, between 7 and 13 gigatons of carbon must be sequestered annually, to offset emissions, and reach the Net Zero goal,” he said. . The expression “Net Zero” designates carbon neutrality, a condition in which all remaining emissions are offset by sequestration.

According to the researcher, the price of sequestered carbon is still very low, but in regulated markets such as Europe, a ton of sequestered carbon already reaches a value of 69 euros. “The demand is already high and tends to increase, the price too, and the supply is still low and of low quality,” he said.

Crouzeilles informed that the quality of the carbon sequestration offer is measured based on three criteria. The first is “durability”, that is, how long the sequestration can be maintained. The second criterion is “additionality”, which only applies when reforestation strictly meets the objective of carbon sequestration. A forest reconstructed for logging cannot be presented as an addition that only became possible due to financing obtained in the carbon market. The third criterion, finally, is that there is no “leakage”, that is, that reforestation in a certain area does not imply deforestation in another.

“Brazil presents one of the greatest opportunities for large-scale and low-cost reforestation to remove CO2 from the atmosphere”, emphasized the researcher. And he listed four advantages of the country: high potential for carbon sequestration; low cost for reforestation; large amount of available area; high potential for assisted natural regeneration.

Instead of turning a blind eye to an obtuse policy of deforestation and predation on natural resources, Brazilian economic agents should see the preservation and reconstruction of forests as one of the country's greatest and potentially most profitable assets.

“Due to climatic conditions, the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest are among the best places in the world for carbon sequestration. And, especially in the Amazon, the opportunity cost for this is low”, commented Crouzeilles.

The “opportunity cost”, he explained, is the amount of money that the rural owner stops earning when redirecting part of his area from agricultural activity to reforestation. In places far from the agribusiness expansion frontier, this redirection can be a very advantageous option from an economic point of view, not to mention its environmental virtues.

Crouzeilles said that large corporations, such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and others, are very committed to the carbon neutral policy until 2050. And that Microsoft, in particular, not only wants to bring its emissions balance to zero, but also to erase all the “carbon footprint” left throughout its history.

According to the researcher, the carbon sequestration market is highly promising for Brazil. But we need to act soon, and with high speed, because 2030 is just around the corner and the goal of reducing global warming below 1,5 to 2,0 degrees Celsius remains far from being achieved. In Crouzeilles' opinion, only startup-type companies have enough flexibility and agility to occupy this space.

Ecosystem services

The webinar aimed to debate the potential of ecosystem services for sustainability. “Our objective is to dialogue with different audiences and with broader segments of society”, stated Luiz Eugênio Mello, scientific director of FAPESP, who participated in the opening of the meeting.

In the second part of the webinar, a virtual round table brought together professionals who already work economically in the ecosystem services sector. Paulo Groke, director of the Ecofuturo institute, maintained by the company Suzano, and Marcelo Gomes da Silva Pereira, forestry environment manager at Suzano, participated; Isabel Duarte Coutinho, director and researcher at Natcrom Soluções Sustentáveis; and Andresa Berretta, manager of Apis Flora.

Groke cited the example of Parque das Neblinas, an environmental reserve in Suzano managed by Instituto Ecofuturo. Covering 7 thousand hectares, with Atlantic forest in different stages of recovery, the park hosts forest management and restoration activities, ecotourism, environmental education, scientific research and community participation.

Pereira presented Suzano's objectives in the field of nature-based solutions. The company, which is the largest global producer of eucalyptus pulp, has a forest area of ​​2,3 million hectares, of which almost 1 million hectares have been conserved as a native reserve. The expectation, according to the manager, is to value and monetize this natural heritage, incorporating ecosystem services into the company's portfolio.

Moving from a large company to a startup, the webinar continued with a presentation by Isabel Coutinho, who described NatCrom's activities, with support from FAPESP's Innovative Research in Small Businesses Program (PIPE) and currently housed in the business incubator at Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) in Araraquara.

Based on the concept of circular economy, which transforms waste into resources, NatCrom produces botanical extracts and phytochemicals from agro-industry waste, specifically using waste in the mango production chain to manufacture biopolymers.

In the last presentation, Andresa Berretta spoke about AgroBee, a startup also supported by the PIPE/FAPESP Program. More than 70% of agricultural crops depend on pollination by bees. And AgroBee connects beekeepers with farmers who need bees to pollinate their crops. The connection is made through a digital application with several functionalities. This is why the company was nicknamed, in the media, “the Uber of bees”.

Among the results, Berretta cited a 17% increase in average production per hectare in Arabica coffee plantations that started using this ecosystem service during the flowering weeks.

The webinar “Ecosystem Services” was presented by Jean Paul Metzger, professor of ecology at the University of São Paulo and member of the Coordination Committee of the BIOTA-FAPESP Program. The round table was coordinated by Carlos Alfredo Joly, main mentor of the BIOTA-FAPESP Program and recently awarded the title of Professor Emeritus by the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).

The “Ecosystem Services” webinar can be watched in full in the video below.