Carbon Conscious Carbon Capture Project 1

Carbon Conscious Carbon Capture Project 1 is a Reforestation by Environmental or Mallee Plantings project located across 14 properties in the Central and Northern Agricultural Regions of Western Australia, spanning parts of the semi-arid Wheatbelt and Mid-West regions. It was registered in September 2013 and initially covered a project area of 6,978.91 hectares, with approximately 5,700 hectares actively planted with trees.

Environmental and mallee planting projects involve establishing permanent plantings of native tree species, such as mallee eucalypts, on land that was predominantly used for agricultural purposes for at least five years prior to project commencement. The trees must be planted at a sufficient density to ultimately achieve forest canopy cover.

The Central and Northern Agricultural Regions of Western Australia are well known for broadacre dryland cropping and sheep grazing. The area typically experiences a semi-arid, Mediterranean climate with low to medium rainfall, and features soils ranging from sandy loams to lateritic gravels. This region is recognised as being significantly over-cleared, meaning that large-scale reforestation helps combat local environmental issues such as soil salinity, wind erosion, and water erosion.

Between 2009 and 2010, this massive project saw over 6 million native mallee trees planted to create a long-term carbon sink. The project is legally bound to maintain the forest for a permanence period of 100 years. It was contracted under the Emissions Reduction Fund (Contract CAC194219), successfully delivering its committed volume of 110,138 ACCUs to the Commonwealth by its completion in 2021. The project's proponent, ACCU Asset Management Pty Ltd, was originally tied to Alterra Limited before its carbon business was successfully demerged in 2018 into a separate entity. Today, the carbon credits generated by the project are highly sought after in the voluntary market, used by major businesses such as GH Commercial and Godfrey Hirst Australia to achieve their official Climate Active Carbon Neutral certifications.