CSX provides the technology and the marketplace enabling farmers to access environmental finance through the sale of carbon and biodiversity offsetting credits to businesses.

Businesses are reducing their greenhouse gas emissions through efficiencies in their operations and supply chains. Many have made environmental commitments to go further and becoming NetZero by offsetting their unavoidable emissions by purchasing carbon credits.

Farmers can generate carbon credits by planting woodlands and restoring peatlands that can lock up carbon for centuries. These new habitats also improve biodiversity and provide a host of Natural Capital benefits, such as water and air quality and health & wellbeing.

CSX enables farmers and businesses to work together to accelerate environmental gain.

CSX helps farmers and land managers:

1. Start measuring, rather than modelling, the carbon sequestered from planting woodlands.
2. More accurately evaluate the reduced carbon emissions from restoring peatlands.
3. Measure biodiversity improvements from changes in habitat over time.

CSX provides three key elements for a trusted carbon market: measurement, trade and audit. We believe we are the first company in the world to make this technology accessible:

1. Measurement: CSX provides the data and technical infrastructure to commence measurement, monitoring and verification of carbon sequestration (from tree planting), carbon mitigation (from peatland restoration) and biodiversity gains (habitat change).
2. Trade: CSX is a marketplace, allowing the farmers to sell carbon offsets generated from their land to businesses who wish to buy carbon offsets as they work towards carbon neutrality.
3. Audit: Businesses that buy through CSX are provided with a digital audit trail of the carbon and biodiversity credits, delivering integrity to the evidence that their environmental commitments are being met.

We believe that integrating new technology and the latest evidence based, peer reviewed, scientific learning is crucial to deliver integrity to the carbon and Natural Capital markets. CSX actively supports, funds and works with a range of scientific research bodies, including BE:AMS:

Biocarbon Europe: Advancing Measurement Standard is CSX’s dedicated scientific research program that uses the latest in earth observation technologies (ground, airborne and satellite) and data analytics to improve the measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) of above ground biomass carbon. The program is supported by leading academic institutions including the University of Oxford and Ghent University (Belgium).

Drones capture high resolution photographs of a woodland. Using a process called photogrammetry, these photographs are stitched together to create a 3D representation of the woodland.

Machine learning is then applied to this photogrammetry output to count and measure the trees. The machine learning is trained through repeated use hence its’ accuracy keeps improving over time.

The machine learning output is ‘ground truthed’ against data from our Carbon Observatories.

Carbon Observatories are CSX’s control sites. Situated around the UK these sites have been chosen for their representation of a wide variety of habitats. Carbon Observatories are monitored closely by traditional data collection techniques, and new technologies – satellites, drones, Terrestrial Laser Scanning, LIDAR. It is from these Carbon Observatories that the data is collected to inform and update the CSX carbon models.

Drone surveying contractors are widely used in the agricultural sector, monitoring crop yields, surveying forestry assets and assessing infrastructure.  The cost of acquiring a drone is falling rapidly and we expect many land managers to own their own drones in the future.

Satellite observation works well at scale but cannot provide the resolution required for accurate measurement. Free to use satellite data is, at best, 10 metres resolution, most paid for satellite data is of resolutions no better that 2m, and even the most expensive ‘high resolution’ satellite data from Boeing and Airbus is no better than 25cm resolution. Drone imagery can achieve 1.5cm resolution. This higher resolution data is required to assess multiple habitats and measure individual trees.

Many new technologies are being developed which will improve accuracy in measurement and monitoring of Natural Capital assets. The CSX platform is designed so that new data collection and assessment methods can be integrated as they become proven and cost effective.

CSX’s peatland programme enables landowners to assess the carbon balance of their upland peatlands, plan restoration of degraded peat and monitor the change resulting from its restoration.

CSX works with land managers to bring forward and monitor projects that deliver BNG. CSX provides a marketplace between land managers and developers for the sale/purchase of BNG credits and the ongoing monitoring of the habitat change.

Please get in touch, we would be delighted to hear from you.

The CSX platform will be launched in spring 2023, however we are already working with selected farmers and landowners to bring forward projects. These farmers are helping us develop our technology and processes – and will benefit with first mover advantage.

CSX’s standard charging structure has three elements:

• An annual fee for farmers to use the CSX platform and manage their data.
• An assessment fee for processing earth observation data and measure Natural Capital gains.
• A commission on the sale of Natural Capital.

We are also able to provide bespoke earth observation data gathering and processing services and would be delighted to discuss your individual requirements in greater detail.  Please contact us to explore these added value services and opportunities.

CSX are engaging in dialogue with the pre-existing carbon standards, as the whole sector looks at how to implement the Taskforce on Scaling the Voluntary Carbon Market’s blueprint recommendations to:

• connect carbon credits supply to demand in a seamless, cost-effective, and transparent way.
• instil confidence and ensures credibility in carbon credits being exchanged/transacted.
• Create a scalable infrastructure to meet the expected increase in demand.

CSX will certify carbon sequestered within new woodland planting and emittance reduction from peatland restoration to a new standard of technological and scientific measurement, providing a higher level of verification accuracy than current methods.

We anticipate that in time, and following an appropriate assessment process, earth observation data will become integral to the operation of carbon standards going forward.

As carbon removal and offsetting becomes a part of our everyday lives, it is imperative that carbon is measured with accuracy and transparency.

To evidence delivery of environmental commitments businesses need verifiable data from the projects they support.   CSX uses earth observation data, underpinned by leading science, to provide businesses with the verification and transparent audit trail necessary for their ESG compliance.

CSX’s technology is positioned for scalability. Our approach is ambitious and our offering is designed to serve the global Natural Capital markets of the future.