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  • Offset your organization's carbon emissions

  • High quality nature-based removals

  • Transparency and tech you can rely on

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This animation shows our process in a nutshell

Plant a better future with us

With our Carbon Removal Units (or CRUs), you're assured of a triple win.

Impactful

As a responsible corporate organization, you'll be battling climate change while simultaneously improving smallholder farmers’ lives, and improving biodiversity and soil quality for long-term climate impact.

Humane

When you buy our carbon credits, you’re buying high-quality credits generated by smallholder farmers in developing countries who planted trees on their land (agroforestry). With 80% of your funding flowing back to them, you help them to improve their livelihoods and invest in their development. 

Measurable

Our credits are measurable, ex post, and nature-based. Advanced technology ensures we can offer traceable, transparent credits on a large scale. Enabling you to reach your climate goals without any of the guesswork.

View our brochure online or download as PDF

Our brochure

Credits you can count on

The carbon credits Acorn issues are specifically carbon removal units: we don't prevent emissions, reduce them, or make up for them, but we capture already emitted carbon in biomass such as trees. So the credits you're buying represent currently existing biomass, not a promise for the future. 

Consequently, our credits are reliable and objective — and verifiable, because of our technological monitoring solutions. In addition to that, our credits are direct-retire only.  Buying a credit means removing carbon. Easy as that. And it's an approach our client base appreciates, such as Microsoft and Standard Chartered.

Everyone co-benefits

Our mission is to empower smallholder farmers. Helping your organization to reach its CO2 targets is a way for us to do that. That's what we mean when we talk about co-benefits: both your company and the farmers supplying your carbon credits are better off.

Smallholder farmers

  • Receive 80% of the sale price of each CRU, improving their livelihoods and financial independence;

  • Have access to additional food and revenue because of the trees' produce;

  • Ensure their land is more resilient to the effects of climate change (such as floods);

  • Reap the benefits of restored soil health and increased biodiversity.

Your organization

  • has access to a continuous flow of high-quality credits, year after year, without needing to invest in new project selection;

  • invests in a project that meets a variety of Sustainable Development Goals (see below);

  • supports the growth and prosperity of local communities worldwide and empowers smallholder farmers;

  • is assured of Plan Vivo-certified, Rabobank-monitored, and technology-validated carbon credits.

The Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) are a collection of 17 goals defined by the United Nations that together lead the way to a better, more sustainable future for our planet and everyone on it. By buying Acorn CRUs, you're contributing to: 1 — No poverty; 2 — Zero hunger; 6 — Clean water and sanitation; 8 — Decent work and economic growth; 9 — Industry, innovation, and infrastructure; 13 — Climate action; 15 — Life on land; and 17 — Partnerships for the goals

See it for yourself

We meticulously document where our CRUs come from and where they're going. Our tools enable us to verify that the biomass they represent is still present. And that data is available to all: everyone can check the details of individual CRUs, farmers, and plots of land. Transparency is a two-way street, after all. 

Have a look yourself, or view all plots of the project here.  

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Get in touch

Interested in purchasing our CRUs? Our eligibility criteria can be found here. All set? Request a quote and our team will be in touch shortly. 

As CRU prices fluctuate, we can only provide an indication of our recent transaction price of €35 (updated Oct-2023). No rights can be derived from this information. 

More information about our CRUs

What are the eligibility criteria for companies that want to buy Acorn CRUs?

We believe in our mission and commit ourselves to empowering smallholder farmers and fighting climate change. That also means that we want the organizations who buy our credits to make a real effort, and not just buy a few carbon credits and tick a box. At least one of the following measures should be in place to be eligible to purchase Acorn CRUs: 

  • A committed science-based target (SBTi) aligned to limiting a global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees;  

  • A written strategy in place to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions (publicly available or available to Rabobank);  

  • Proven greenhouse gas reduction (publicly available or available to Rabobank).  

Rabobank/Acorn reserves the right to refrain from or discontinue contracting with individual organizations that do not (continue to) meet sustainability requirements. 

Furthermore, all buyers need to comply with the Rabobank Sustainability Statement. For organizations without a current relationship with Rabobank, a customer due diligence check, in accordance with Rabobank’s due diligence standards will be part of any purchase process.

All characteristics of Acorn CRUs

Each and every Acorn CRU you buy: 

  • Represents one tonne of CO2; 

  • Is certified by Plan Vivo; 

  • Denotes removal offsets (not avoidance, reduction or allowance credits); 

  • Is ex-post—the carbon is sequestered before the CRU is generated, not a promise for the future; 

  • Provides a nature-based solution—we use agroforestry methods rather than technological solutions like direct air capture; 

  • Is derived from projects that exclusively cover smallholder farmers (<10 ha) in developing countries; 

  • Is transparent, measured with remote sensing and traceable —we show when, where and by whom the carbon is sequestered, all the way down to the individual plot and farmer level; 

  • Features a durability period of 20 years—this is the period during which the CO2 represented by a CRU is expected to remain removed from the atmosphere or sequestered in the buffer pool; 

  • Is backed by a buffer pool put in place as insurance for reversal events; 

  • Guarantees 80-90% of the sale price flows directly back to the smallholder farmer; 

  • Contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 13, 15, 17.

  • Has a minimum price of EUR 20;

  • As CRU prices fluctuate, we can only provide an indication of our recent transaction price of €35 (updated Oct-2023). No rights can be derived from this information.

Additional information of Acorn CRUs

Every Acorn CRU represents one metric tonne CO2, which is intended to be:

  • Net of any leakage,

  • Removed from the atmosphere as a result of the biomass growth in agroforestry projects,

  • Additional to any GHG reduction that would occur in the base of the projects

  • Stored or otherwise sequestered during the durability period.

The durability period is the period during which the CO2 represented by a CRU is expected to remain removed from the atmosphere or sequestered in the buffer pool. For our CRUs this currently is monitored for 20 years since its creation.

To support durability, we have created a buffer pool by setting aside 15% of the CRUs issued. In case of unexpected, premature release of carbon stock (e.g. through forest fires or illegal logging), CRUs are replaced from the buffer pool (which is not unlimited). These replacement CRUs are referred to as buffer pool CRUs. The buffer pool is managed by Rabobank with third-party oversight from the Plan Vivo Foundation. For avoidance of doubt, Acorn’s reversal obligation is capped to the CRUs available in the buffer pool.

CRUs are calculated following the Acorn methodology. CRUs are based on the values of above ground biomass in a certain plot, derived from satellite images and ground truth data using predictive machine learning models.

To generate CRUs we use machine learning carbon models to measure the above ground biomass. The carbon models are developed from a combination of sample plot ground truth measurements and satellite imagery for a specific ecoregion. The models make an estimate of the total biomass of a certain plot. Data from sample plots is used to calibrate the models. The minimum accuracy of the models is 70% and is compensated for with an uncertainty adjustment factor. All models are independently validated by EY and Rabobank.

For a full description of our process and all details of the models and formulas used, have a look at the Acorn framework and methodology. Both are publicly available on our website and both have been under public consultation.

The Acorn Framework describes our approach and the Plan Vivo certification process and requirements for every Acorn CRU.

The Acorn Methodology describes the processes involved when measuring and calculating carbon removal units. The Methodology has been externally assessed and approved by two accredited validation and verification bodies: SCS Global Services and AENOR.

Buyers have a committed science based target (SBTi) aligned to limiting a global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees and/or a written strategy in place to reduce its GHG emissions and/or a proven GHG reduction (publicly available or available to Rabobank) and purchases Acorn CRUs to compensate unavoidable GHG emissions from its activities.

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