Digging into Soil Carbon Measurement with Yard Stick

My Climate Journey

Chris Tolles is the CEO and Co-founder of Yard Stick PBC, which stands for Public Benefits Corporation. Yard Stick is aiming to be the measurement backbone for soil carbon. Their handheld hardware enables onsite measurement of soil carbon in agricultural fields, and their software package provides data and analytics that help stakeholders in a soil carbon project to measure and track progress. As Chris tells it, the Yard Stick co-founders got to know one another in the MCJ member community during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020. MCJ is a proud multi-time investor in Yard Stick. Even so, we still learned a ton from Chris during this conversation.

Chris highlighted that while MRV technologies are often associated with carbon credit sales, the voluntary carbon market is just one avenue for soil carbon project development. Another that is seeing strong early traction is insetting, where food and agriculture companies are beginning to measure an attempt to reduce the carbon intensity of their own agricultural supply chains. They aren't selling credits; rather, they're starting to make progress on directly reducing the emissions of how their food is grown, which is great news. Chris charts his background and experience and then explains what soil carbon is and why it matters, helping to put the efforts that Yard Stick is making into the context of the broader global carbon cycle.

Episode recorded on Oct 13, 2023 (Published on Dec 7, 2023)

In this episode, we cover:

• [02:38]: Chris's background and pivoting from consumer products to climate
• [08:43]: Origins of Yard Stick in the MCJ Community
• [11:59]: How Chris and co-founders came to focus on soil organic carbon
• [14:43]: Cristine Morgan's research background as Yard Stick CSO
• [18:50]: Overview of soil organic carbon and key drivers of soil carbon stock losses
• [27:46]: Issues with how claims have been measured historically
• [33:39]: Why remote sensing technology is insufficient
• [35:29]: Yard Stick's technology and approach
• [42:50]: The company's business model
• [46:00]: Addressing criticism of soil carbon and other nature-based solutions
• [51:49]: Soil carbon support in Inflation Reduction Act and future policy
• [56:00]: Yard Stick's $18 million grant from the USDA
• [58:19]: Their recent $12M Series A round led by Toyota Ventures
• [01:00:00]: Reckoning with racial injustice and land theft in agriculture
• [01:02:04]: Encouraging climate companies to address complex social issues

Resources mentioned:

• Demo Carbon Stock Report
• “Yard Stick lands 10.6M Series A to measure soil carbon” (TechCrunch)

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• Cody Simms X / LinkedIn
• MCJ Podcast / Collective / YouTube

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