The Karbonmat team presents first findings in Trondheim

The Karbonmat project team met in Trondheim in January to discuss research progress and plan further activities.

During the project meeting, the Karbonmat project team discussed new developments in the field of soil health, carbon farming, and carbon/nature credits both nationally and internationally – particularly in the European Union.

All attendees presented the progress of their respective work packages. It became apparent that the researchers had come far in terms of data collection among various actors and sectors. Among others, data collection included mapping of carbon credit initiatives and reviewing EU legal and policy framework for carbon farming, in addition to ongoing experiments and measurements of effects from soil managements practices on carbon sequestration.

Our researchers have also conducted interviews with representatives from European carbon farming initiatives to learn more about their business models. In addition, we have interviewed Norwegian companies currently paying for carbon offsets and who do not pay yet for such programs to investigate their interest for our business model design.  Furthermore, through interviews and a national survey we continue to study Norwegian farmers’ interest and willingness to participate in a carbon farming program.

The findings will inform our development of sustainable business models that seek to enable positive ripple effects for farmers, soils, the environment and climate while reducing the climate footprint from Norwegian companies.

Based on the collected data so far, Karbonmat has started disseminating results on various platforms. Several podcasts are planned for the upcoming year, and currently a journal article is under peer review.

Karbonmat will also present preliminary findings on international arenas. First in March 2026, at the Carbon Farming Summit, which is a great opportunity to meet with various stakeholders and engage more deeply with business models.

Our aspiration to learn about agri-food business models in general, also leads Karbonmat to organize a workshop entitled “Innovative business models in the agri-food sector” during the New Business Model conference in July, that will be held in Toulouse, France. You can read more about the conference and the workshop here. Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming workshop.