Environmental Accounting Platform
AIA has developed an environmental accounting platform for Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry, with the first stage delivering a cross-sectoral carbon footprint solution.
Why an environmental accounting platform?
Our goal with this platform is to provide Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry with an accessible and standardised approach to carbon footprinting.
We undertook an extensive discovery phase to understand the gaps, challenges, and specific needs of producers, commercial players and solution providers in the carbon footprint space.
This work uncovered three key pain points with carbon accounting:
Producers find carbon accounting confusing and cumbersome
Carbon calculators must be constantly maintained and updated
Lack of a consistent, standardised approach can lead to fragmentation and confusion.
The AIA Environmental Accounting Platform addresses these pain points by:
providing a whole of agriculture, fisheries and forestry solution
enabling a carbon footprint calculation at a commodity, enterprise and whole of business level
a consistent and standardised implementation of calculation models
taking a precompetitive approach and integrating with channels producers already use and trust
establishing a technical advisory panel of Australian experts in greenhouse gas accounting, emissions reduction, soil carbon management, lifecycle assessment and climate science.
As a not-for-profit, AIA is ideally placed to own and manage the IP, infrastructure and governance of an environmental accounting platform on behalf of industry.
A definitive carbon footprint engine
The first stage of the platform will allow farmers, fishers and foresters (growers) to calculate their enterprise’s carbon footprint across multiple commodities.
Our whole of agriculture, fisheries and forestry approach is designed to help Australia avoid the fragmentation, duplication and inconsistencies seen in other markets that have a proliferation of carbon calculators.
AIA's platform is pre-competitive, designed to integrate with channels that growers already use and trust, including farm management software, agricultural services provider offerings, agrifinance, and others.
Industry support The platform is being developed with investment from some of Australia’s rural Research and Development Corporations including Grains Research and Development Corporation, Meat & Livestock Australia, Australian Eggs, Australian Pork Limited, AgriFutures Australia (chicken meat), Australian Meat Processor Corporation, Cotton Rural Research and Development Corporation and Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.
Integrity
A Technical Advisory Panel advises AIA on relevant emerging research, best practice and potential changes required to the platform to ensure it remains up to date, aligned and compliant with the relevant standards.
The Panel is comprised of Australian experts in greenhouse gas accounting, emissions reduction, soil carbon management, lifecycle assessment and climate science, including Professor Richard Eckard.
Key features
- whole of agriculture, fisheries and forestry solution that supports multiple commodities
- provides a whole of enterprise carbon footprint
- widely accessible via multiple channels
- secure integration via API
- standardised implementation of carbon footprint calculation models
- GAF models used align with the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reporting protocol, relevant ISO standards and the GHG protocol
- data privacy and security at the core of the design
- updated as improvements and revisions to the calculation models, underlying reference data and algorithms occur
- strong governance and technical advisory to support ongoing development
- auditable, with whole portfolio and individual farm views
- real-time results with graphical reporting
- extensible and flexible design to enable new commodity-specific calculators and other accounting frameworks to be added.
Growers/advisors/users
choose single or multiple commodity calculators
can baseline your enterprise to measure future performance against
use scenario planning to support decision-making around reducing carbon emissions and capturing new opportunities
choose when and who to share data with.
Download AIA Environmental Accounting Platform flyer
Access
AIA has taken a pre-competitive, open-source approach to the design of the platform. Producers and growers can access the platform will be via multiple channels, including RDC websites. Value chain participants, corporates, solution providers and other entities can connect to the platform or build it into their own service offerings. Access will be via an API subscription model.
Integration partners/corporate subscribers
AIA is currently seeking integration partners who want to connect to our platform or build it into their own service offerings. Access will be on an API subscription model.
Timing
The beta-access period has now closed. Stay informed about the launch and latest developments by completing our contact us form and selecting 'update me about the AIA EAP'.
More information
Find out more about the platform, including integration options, by contacting AIA