Becoming a pioneer in carbon removal

Helping the financial services giant Rabobank become a pioneer in reducing emissions and removing carbon from the atmosphere.

In a world in which concerns about the threats posed by climate change are greater than ever before, the need to reduce carbon emissions has become an increasingly important business and reputational risk for companies large and small. To help its SME clients reduce their emissions, Rabobank developed Rabo Carbon Bank, a climate-smart proposition focused on Carbon Farming, Supply Chain Decarbonization and Carbon Reduction in Retail. 

• Visioning 
• Customer Discovery 
• Market Analysis 
• Problem-Solution Fit
• Pilot

Visioning 

During an intense first week, our team kicked off the Carbon Bank project with the Rabobank team in a visioning sprint. Together they reviewed and sharpened Rabobank’s vision of a carbon bank, cut up the project in several workstreams, and created a detailed working package for each stream.

‍

Customer Discovery and Market Analysis 

Our focus was on multiple customer groups – from farmers and SMEs to corporates and the players in the voluntary carbon market. During customer discovery, we interviewed dozens of experts, customers, and stakeholders within each customer group. 

In addition, we mapped out the entire carbon offset ecosystem and value chain, identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks, together with defining areas for improvement. 

‍

Problem-Solution Fit and Pilot 

During these phases, our team validated and developed propositions for each of the customer groups. Propositions include a one stop shop service for farmers to transition towards carbon farming, a service to enable large F&A supply chains to reduce emissions of food products, setting up a solution for Rabobank’s business clients to reduce their carbon footprint by electrifying their fleets and a service for Brazilian farmers to plant trees on their farmland. 

We ensured that the propositions were desirable, feasible, and viable before each workstream developed MVPs to run large-scale pilots with the above customer groups.

The Rabo Carbon Bank is developing climate-smart initiatives focused on Carbon Farming. We are currently developing propositions and conducting experiments with farmers that reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.

‍

The key initiatives include:

Carbon Farming

Removing carbon from the atmosphere through regenerative farming by supporting the business model of farmers. We support crop farmers in the US in their transition to regenerative farming by facilitating them in generating carbon credits for the regenerative practices they implement. This facilitation consists of attractive financing solutions, agronomic advice and support , verification of carbon credits and sales of carbon credits.

‍

Decarbonizing Supply Chains

Achieving emission reductions in Food and Agri supply chains by incentivizing partners to take action. We help corporates achieve, monitor, and verify the carbon reduction of their dairy suppliers to reduce their corporate Scope 3 emissions. Simultaneously, we provide these dairy producers with economic incentives to implement future-proof farming solutions.

‍

Trees for Farmers 

The Trees for Farmers proposition focuses on enabling farmers to sequester carbon in trees.

‍

Peatlands

Reducing CO2 emissions with dairy farmers by increasing the water level on their peatlands. Turning reduction of carbon emissions into valuable carbon credits (or reduction certificates). These can be sold to corporates in the supply chain or other voluntary buyers.

‍