AACo's Beef Cattle Herd Management Carbon Project

AACo's Beef Cattle Herd Management Carbon Project is an agricultural project located across vast tracts of pastoral land in the Northern Territory and Queensland, spanning multiple remote regions from the Barkly Tableland down to Central Queensland. It was registered in June 2019 and, while the exact project area is officially unlisted, it operates across an unspecified but massive footprint encompassing millions of hectares of the proponent's pastoral properties.

Beef cattle herd management projects involve implementing structured dietary or management practices that reduce the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of cattle production. Standard requirements for this methodology dictate that proponents must consistently demonstrate a reduction in emissions (primarily enteric methane) per kilogram of liveweight produced compared to a historical baseline.

The regions utilized for this project are fundamentally dedicated to extensive cattle grazing. Given the massive multi-state footprint across Northern Australia, the environment encompasses semi-arid to tropical savanna climates characterized by highly variable, summer-dominant rainfall. The soil profiles across these areas range from expansive cracking clay soils (vertosols) in the Mitchell Grass Downs to sandy loams and red earths in the more arid interior zones.

This project reduces emissions intensity by adopting measures to increase the total annual liveweight gain of the herd. This is achieved by strategically changing the ratio of livestock classes, increasing the overall weight-to-age ratio, reducing the average age of the herd, and actively reducing the proportion of unproductive animals.

An interesting fact about this project is its immense scale and deep integration with corporate sustainability initiatives. According to AACo's 2026 Annual Report, the project is a major component of the company's decarbonization pathway and generated an impressive 121,841 ACCUs in FY26 alone. Additionally, the carbon project intersects with broader natural capital accounting efforts; on some of AACo's participating Central Queensland properties, advanced drone-mapping tools are actively used to digitally track surrounding environmental indicators like coarse woody debris to assess broader ecosystem health.