Adam Kotin, Managing Director of the Soil and Climate Initiative (SCI), wants the world to recognize the power of soil. “Engaging your agricultural supply chain is the only opportunity you have to reduce emissions and draw down carbon and adapt your supply chains to the future,” he says. Adam’s company, SCI, is an independent third-party regenerative agriculture commitment and verification program, which empowers and incentivizes farmers and the agricultural supply chain to transition acres to regenerative management. We sat down with him on our latest Inspiring Perspectives podcast to hear how companies can leverage the power of soil and agriculture to help reverse climate change.

Corporations play a key role in driving change

“A lot of the momentum in this field of regenerative agriculture is actually currently being driven by brands themselves, companies that have set climate targets or nature targets, investors who are pushing them in that direction, and retailers. In the last year or so, retailers are really seeing the value of this kind of messaging and wanting it to be a part of the sustainability story and the next innovative thing in food that they are bringing forward to their customers.” 

Don’t let accounting hold you back from progress

Adam says, “I encourage companies to not get stuck on the real hardcore metrics all the time. Obviously, it's important that you have CO2 equivalents calculated for your work that you're doing towards a climate target. But what are the other ways that you can understand your improvements on your climate impact?” He goes on to say that there may be hard-to-measure aspects of regenerative practices, but that the benefits of evolving your practices is proven, and your measurement will catch up.

It’s just the beginning

Adam sees the future as both uncertain and hopeful. “In the same way that  the very deep sea is kind of like an unexplored frontier - and the outer reaches of space are an unexplored frontier -  there's still so much incredible research going in and things that we're learning all the time about soil,” he says. But he goes on to say, “The real excitement here is that you can take this thing [regenerative agriculture] that actually produces an output, that actually produces an ingredient that you can use, and it can also have that positive climate impact, not just mitigating harm, but actually generating positive impact.”

For more, listen to the full episode.