The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) allows farmers and other land managers to earn Australian carbon credit units by storing carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the land.
These Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) can be sold to people and businesses wishing to offset their emissions.
Activities that count towards our national target under the Kyoto Protocol including reforestation, avoided deforestation, and reducing emissions from livestock, manure, fertiliser and waste deposited in landfills before 1 July 2012 can earn Kyoto ACCUs.
These activities can be used to meet liabilities under Australia’s carbon price mechanism. After 2012 these ACCUs are referred to as compliance ACCUs.
Some CFI activities are not included in our greenhouse accounts under the Kyoto Protocol and do not count towards our national target. These include soil carbon, feral animal management, improved forest management and non-forest revegetation.
Through the CFI, these activities can earn non-Kyoto ACCUs and be sold into the voluntary market.
The CFI is administered by the Clean Energy Regulator.
The Clean Energy Regulator is responsible for approving CFI projects, issuing CFI credits and managing the holding, transfer, retirement, relinquishment and cancellation of units through the Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU).
The Clean Energy Regulator is also responsible for educating stakeholders and participants about the CFI rules and their obligations and undertaking compliance action.
The Australian National Registry of Emissions Units is an electronic system used to track the issuance, trade and retirement of emissions units under the carbon price mechanism, the CFI and under the Kyoto Protocol.
When someone earns credits through the CFI, the Clean Energy Regulator will issue the credits into their Registry account. Opening a Registry account is part of applying to participate in the CFI.
Account holders may sell their CFI credits by transferring them to another account holder in the registry.
Eligible CFI credits can be traded internationally.