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SRP-led partnership to develop Low Carbon Assurance Module for SRP Assurance Scheme

Bangkok, 23 May 2024 — The Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) is helping to measure reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in rice produced under the SRP Standard for Sustainable Rice Cultivation.  This ‘Low-Carbon Assurance Module’ will complement the SRP-Verified Assurance Scheme, enabling companies to claim verified GHG reductions in their rice supply chains.

Partnering with Mars Food and Nutrition, Regrow Ag as technical / MRV partner and Gold Standard as learning partner, the initiative has received a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO. Mars Food and Nutrition is co-financing the project.

LT Foods, a major Indian rice exporter and longstanding SRP member, will serve as the project’s key implementation partner during the piloting phase.

About the Project

Many of the world’s food supply chains are grappling with the challenge of how to decarbonize their supply chains, and account for the abatement in a high integrity way. Most food businesses have set ambitious Scope 3 targets, and agricultural emissions make up the majority of this scope 3 footprint. This means that to meet targets, taking action on-farm and in partnership with their suppliers is non-negotiable. This is particularly challenging in rice supply chains because understanding emissions in rice is complex – with variability of practices, significant impact of weather/climate, and complexity of methane and nitrous oxide fluxes making emissions highly variable.

Addressing this need, the project will extend the scope of the SRP Assurance Scheme which already enables retailers to make verifiable sustainability claims under the ‘SRP-Verified’ on-pack label.

Based on an “insetting” model, the project will seamlessly integrate with SRP’s existing system, leveraging Regrow Ag’s extensive expertise in Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) and Gold Standard’s methodology to quantify and validate emissions reductions achieved by rice farmers adopting the SRP Standard for Sustainable Rice Cultivation.

Implemented from April 2024 to September 2025, the pilot has the following objectives:

  1. Establish reliable data quantifying, demonstrating and validating GHG reductions achieved through compliance with the SRP Standard.
  2. Develop a standardized, scalable approach that is economically and practically feasible. Beyond development, the Low Carbon Assurance Module will offer wider access to credible validation of Scope 3 emissions from SRP certified rice value chains, generate additional data to improve our understanding and deliver positive benefits to rice smallholders as part of SRP’s mission to transform the global rice sector.

About the Sustainable Rice Platform

The Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) is a global multi‐stakeholder alliance comprising over 100 institutional members from the public, private, research, civil society and the financial sector. SRP works with its members and partners towards transforming the global rice sector by improving smallholder livelihoods, reducing the social, environmental and climate footprint of rice production, and by offering the global rice market an assured supply of sustainably produced rice.

SRP promotes resource-use efficiency and climate change resilience in rice systems (both on-farm and throughout value chains) and pursues voluntary market transformation initiatives by developing sustainable production standards, indicators, incentive mechanisms, and outreach mechanisms to boost wide-scale adoption of climate-smart, sustainable best practices among small farmers.

In 2015 SRP introduced the world’s first voluntary standard and indicators for sustainable rice farming, dedicated to the needs of smallholders and based on proven science-based best-practices. SRP-Verified rice is today available on retail shelves in 20+ countries.

Contact:
Roong Tepkaew, SRP Communications and Membership Manager
Email: roong.tepkaew@sustainablerice.org

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