Building the industries needed to reduce landfill methane emissions rapidly, sustainably and at scale.

Biological treatment sits below 1% of municipal waste in Latin America; in Brazil, composting accounts for around 0.4%. A practice at that share is not common practice by any reading, and the barrier is not technical: composting is millennia old, unpatented and uncomplicated, and the science is uncontested. The constraint is the green premium, the observable cost gap between recovering a tonne and burying it, which appears in every facility's operating statement.

New measurement data keeps confirming the estimates are conservative: satellite surveys find US landfill methane roughly 51% above the official inventory, and the EPA's own analysis shows most methane from landfilled food waste escapes before gas collection can catch it. The problem is larger than the books report — reduction credits under-count, not over-count.

Nesser et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2024) · US EPA, Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste (2023)

The counterfactual is not whether one facility exists, it is whether an industry gets built — a market-shaping gap, not an impact or quality gap. And the roadmap above is built to end the subsidy it creates: carbon finance now, producer responsibility next, generator inclusion last for system-wide reduction. Carbon credits are the catalyst, not the destination.

Because they are measured, not modelled. Every unit of waste mass is individually identified and tracked in real time on an immutable ledger recording provenance and chain of custody. Digital MRV built for the circular economy monitors 100% of supply-chain and recycling data.

The methodology was validated by Bureau Veritas. Recyclers and processors are accredited every two years by third-party auditors; haulers and waste generators are identity-verified. Mass data, digital audits and credit issuance are published with multi-party verification and the measurements can be checked by anyone.

Nothing is stored, so nothing can escape. Composting prevents methane from forming in the first place: unlike forest sequestration or carbon capture, there is no reservoir to leak and no reversal risk to insure.

Ongoing digital MRV and third-party audits confirm the landfill diversion and emission reductions occurred. Soil health, water retention and biodiversity improve as a result, none of which Carrot, or its partnering standards, credits.

Project boundaries are monitored digitally and capped at 200 km, which limits both process and geographic leakage. The methodology applies conservative assumptions to indirect leakage and to end-product use, including the risk of anaerobic conditions reintroducing methane later.

Recyclers and processors are accredited and audited every two years, and haulers are identity-verified, so the whole chain sits inside the boundary.

It removes several. Diverting organics prevents methane and reduces the leachate, toxic gases and local air pollution that come with landfilling them.

PFAS contamination risk is assessed, and accredited recyclers must meet local soil-toxicity regulation. The compost then replaces chemical fertilizers, restores soil health, improves water retention and plant productivity, and supports biodiversity: enhancements that strengthen climate adaptation and are deliberately left uncredited.

Projects are audited every two years against labour law, human rights and environmental protection, with safeguards against displacement or exploitation of vulnerable communities, and local stakeholder input on what a project should prioritise.

Proceeds are distributed across the supply chain, most importantly to the waste generator; discounted rewards from large corporate generators are redirected to accredited NGOs working on the circular economy and child welfare. The work supports small operators and creates green jobs in composting, recycling, repair and reuse.

Because no established carbon standard was built for this segment. Conventional carbon registry cost floors and transaction costs exclude the small and mid-sized operators this market has to reach in the Global South, so Carrot built its own.

Carrot does not write the rules for crediting: these are established by existing program managers and scientists. The small-scale composting methodology follows UNFCCC CDM AMS-III.F standards, with additional digital MRV guardrails. The recycling and verification frameworks were authored by Caio de Teves Inácio, a soil carbon and composting scientist at Embrapa, Brazil’s federal agricultural research corporation. Bureau Veritas validated the methodology and its application at an operating facility. Projects are accredited and audited every two years, and credits are verified by independent auditors.

The registry records what those parties attest. Methodologies, governance rules and the Rewards Distribution Policy are published in full, and every issuance is public on the registry.

That separation is what makes Carrot multi-standard and an open public registry for a single source of truth across carbon and circular economy registries.

The next phase involves independent assessment of new methodologies and projects run on Carrot, with the goal of scaling funding to this industry.