- Proba helps agri-tech businesses cut emissions caused by fertilisers and measure the impact of these changes.
- Fertilisers are one of the biggest sources of indirect (Scope 3) emissions in the agri-food sector. While there are ways to reduce these emissions, they are expensive and hard to track.
- Proba provides a way to accurately measure these emission reductions, allowing companies to report, claim or trade them, helping to better fund sustainable farming.
Website: proba.earth
What is Proba?
Farming creates a lot of emissions, and a big part of those emissions come from fertiliser. There are already ways to lower fertiliser emissions, but farmers are often the ones expected to pay for those changes, even though everyone else in the food supply chain benefits from them.
Not only that, but it can be hard to measure and understand the real-term benefits of these changes in practice.
Proba fixes this by providing a way to measure, verify and certify emission reductions in farming, so they can be reported on and fairly paid-for.
For farmers, this makes their crops more valuable to businesses that need to report on sustainability targets, and gives them a quantifiable way to communicate that benefit. Through this, they can recoup some of the money spent adopting these eco-friendly farming practices.
For fertiliser companies, this can help them sell their products by allowing food companies and traders to use them in their sustainability reporting.
In essence, Proba measures how much emissions have been reduced by, has these reductions verified independently and then certifies them. Once they have been certified, these reductions can be used to report on wider sustainability targets, making them more desirable to food businesses.
Proba was founded in 2022 by CEO and Co-Founder Sijbrand Tieleman, who saw first-hand how the cost of “sustainability” often falls on farmers, even though the benefits are shared across the supply chain.
“Agriculture and food supply chains offer one of the biggest opportunities for meaningful climate action. Fertiliser use is the main driver of emissions in the food industry, accounting for roughly 5% of global emissions. If we reduce fertiliser emissions, we reduce emissions where it matters most: in the systems that feed the world.”
– Sijbrand Tieleman, CEO and Co-Founder at Proba
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What Makes Proba Unique?
Proba is unique because it has developed a methodology to accurately measure (and verify) agriculture emissions.
Using science-based methods and its own platform, Proba can accurately measure fertiliser-related emission reductions. This not only helps farmers and food businesses with sustainability reporting, but also allows them to work on projects that assess the sustainability impact of small changes.
Proba prides itself on offering an independent verification system that makes its emissions reporting both credible and trustworthy.
Is There A Market For Agri-Food Decarbonisation?
Yes there is. Food companies, traders and fertiliser producers in the agri-food supply chain are under increasing pressure to reduce emissions, with Scope 3 emissions, such as transport, waste, and fertiliser use, often the most difficult to combat.
For many crops, fertilisers account for a large share of total emissions. This includes both the emissions created when fertilisers are produced and the emissions released when they are applied by vehicles in the field.
If emission reductions can be turned into tradable certificates, they become something of value that can be bought, sold and reported on, making it easier for money to move through the supply chain.
For example, a food company could invest in a farmer cooperative to switch to lower-emission fertilisers. Then, Proba measures and verifies the emission reductions, meaning the food company can report lower Scope 3 emissions, whilst the farmers use the money to pay for the fertiliser.
As sustainability reporting becomes more important, buyers want real, measurable reductions that they can prove. That’s why Proba’s certifications are independently verified and aligned with recognised accounting frameworks such as SBTi and the GHG Protocol.
In short, there is clear demand for verifiable Scope 3 emission reductions in agri-food. The market is actively looking for trusted ways to measure them, verify them, and use them to channel funding into projects that they can be sure will deliver real impact. That’s where Proba steps in.
Where Can You Find Out More About Proba?
You can find out more about Proba’s mission and their methodologies by visiting their website at proba.earth.
