Ecomondo 2024, CIB: carbon credit market is a strategic tool to recognise the role of agriculture in decarbonisation

The appointments and workshops scheduled at Ecomondo kicked off this afternoon at the Forum Area of the CIB-Italian Biogas Consortium on HALL. D5 of the Rimini Exhibition Centre. Until Friday, the CIB will host members, sector experts, stakeholders and institutions to discuss the role of bioenergy in agriculture, the political and technological challenges for the biogas and biomethane sector, and good practices and technologies to tackle the agro-ecological transition.

Carbon credits and agriculture: the contribution of bioenergy to CO2 reduction

To inaugurate the appointments of the Forum Area today, the CIB, in collaboration with Ecomondo’s Technical Scientific Committee, decided to focus on the important topic of carbon credits and their contribution to the ecological transition of Italian farms.
At the opening of the proceedings, Piero Gattoni, President of the CIB, emphasised: ‘Once again this year we have chosen to open the appointments of the Forum Area by tackling an agricultural and prospective issue. It is indeed important to keep up the debate and stimulate discussion on what the best strategy can be for the agricultural sector in order to effectively exploit the opportunity of carbon farming to assign the right role to agriculture for the decarbonisation of production processes. We need to arrive in time at a systemic vision of how best to apply this new approach to Italy’s specificities, so as not to be subjected to decisions taken without our input.’

Italian agriculture is adopting innovative practices and techniques that significantly improve its role in mitigating climate change.  Careful soil management and cultivation practices, the use of organic fertilisers instead of chemical fertilisers, and agriculture 4.0 techniques are actively contributing to the capture of carbon dioxide in soils. In this sense, in recent years, also thanks to the Biogasfattobene model, farms have increased their chances of effectively returning organic matter to the soil.
Where do we stand today? At the European level, as explained by Prof. David Chiaramonti, Turin Polytechnic, institutions are paying great attention to the issue, aiming to standardise and incentivise carbon farming practices throughout the EU and promoting the transition to sustainable agriculture. In April, the European Parliament adopted the provisional agreement on the ‘Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF)’, creating the first voluntary EU framework for the certification of carbon removal, carbon farming and carbon storage in products in Europe. While at the national level it is the work of CREA that is driving the intensification of carbon credit models in Italy as well. During the CIB conference, Irene Criscuoli of CREA-PB underlined the difficulties and opportunities of carbon farming for Italian agriculture, highlighting the state of the art in our country and the possibilities for the Italian market.

In closing, representatives of agricultural associations gave their testimony: Ettore Prandini, President of Coldiretti, Nicola Gherardi, member of the Executive Board of Confagricoltura, and Massimo Bagnoli, Managing Director ESCo Agroenergetica Srl.
On this first day of the Fair, as part of the States General of the Green Economy, the document ‘The Proposals of the National Council for the Green Economy on the Green Deal at the start of the new European legislature’ was presented, to which the CIB also actively contributed, in which the need to continue with determination towards the growth in the use of renewable sources was emphasised, with a particular focus on investments at European level. A renewable energy mix, therefore, where the production of biogas and biomethane (also liquefied) from agricultural biomass takes a leading role.