Agriculture
18% of 37 billion tonnes per year
Decarbonisation Pathway| 9 Sectorsmore details
| Sector | Emissions today | Decarbonisation pathway |
|---|---|---|
| Livestock methane | Very high — methane from livestock digestion, particularly cattle; the single largest agriculture source | Slow and hard — no electrification pathway; solutions are feed additives (3-NOP, seaweed), selective breeding, and herd management; dietary shift away from ruminant meat is the highest-leverage lever but demand-driven |
| Manure management | High — methane and nitrous oxide from stored animal waste | Moderate progress — anaerobic digestion captures methane for biogas; improving manure handling practices reduces emissions; investable today at farm and industrial scale |
| Fertiliser (N₂O) | Very high — nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertiliser application is a potent and persistent GHG | Slow — precision agriculture and variable-rate application reduce over-fertilisation; green ammonia (electrolytic hydrogen + nitrogen) decarbonises fertiliser production upstream; soil biology approaches early stage |
| Rice cultivation | High — flooded paddy fields produce methane through anaerobic decomposition | Moderate — alternate wetting and drying (AWD) techniques reduce emissions significantly; adoption constrained by water management infrastructure and farmer behaviour |
| Deforestation & Land use change | Very high — clearing forest for agricultural land releases stored carbon; the largest single land-use emissions source | Mixed — deforestation rates declining in some regions, accelerating in others; zero-deforestation supply chain commitments from corporates beginning to have effect; monitoring via satellite improving enforcement |
| Soil carbon | Significant — conventional tillage releases soil organic carbon; degraded soils are a net source | Positive direction — regenerative agriculture, no-till, and cover cropping rebuild soil carbon; measurement and verification the key barrier to scaling carbon credit markets |
| Agricultural energy use | Moderate — diesel for machinery, irrigation pumping, heating for intensive livestock and horticulture | Transitioning — electric and hydrogen farm machinery developing; renewable-powered irrigation and controlled environment agriculture growing; follows the broader electrification trajectory |
| Food waste | Moderate — decomposing organic waste generates methane; a significant share occurs at farm level pre-market | Improvable — cold chain efficiency, better demand forecasting, and anaerobic digestion of unavoidable waste are the levers; relatively low-cost abatement opportunity |
| Aquaculture & fisheries | Low to moderate — vessel fuel and feed production dominate | Early transition — electric and hybrid vessels for short-range fisheries; feed innovation (insect protein, algae) reduces land-use pressure; a small but growing theme |
Cultivation
Feeding a growing world while reducing emissions demands precision. Data, robotics and electrification are transforming cultivation from an art of experience into a science of optimisation — the opportunity is to produce more food from less land with less waste.
Swarm Farm
FeaturedAustralia
SwarmFarm's insight is that many small, lightweight robots operating in coordination can do agricultural work more efficiently and with far less soil compaction and chemical use than a single large tractor. Their SwarmBot platform is commercially operational on farms across Queensland and NSW, performing tasks including spray application, inter-row cultivation, seeding and harvest-related operations. The small robots can work continuously, are GPS-guided, and operate autonomously — including navigating around obstacles and returning to base for refuelling. Because each robot carries less weight, they avoid the soil compaction that degrades yield over time with conventional machinery. The swarm model also provides resilience: losing one robot doesn't stop the operation.
Founders
Carbon Robotics
USA
Carbon Robotics uses AI-targeted lasers to destroy weeds at the root without herbicides — offering organic growers and conventional farmers a chemical-free solution to weed management at commercial scale.
FarmLab
Australia
FarmLab aggregates and analyses soil test data across farm paddocks to generate precise nutrient recommendations — reducing fertiliser costs and emissions through data-driven input management.
Kula Bio
USA
Agricultural biotech company whose soil microbe products replace 25–40 pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser per acre — reducing both manufacturing emissions and nitrous oxide from fields, with commercial deployment across millions of acres in North America.
Lleaf
Australia
UNSW-spinout that embeds fluorescent dyes in greenhouse film to shift sunlight into the red wavelengths plants use most efficiently — boosting crop yields by 10–35% with no additional energy, deployable as a simple retrofit to any existing greenhouse.
WeFarm
Kenya
WeFarm is a digital platform connecting smallholder farmers — enabling them to share knowledge, access inputs at better prices, and reach markets more effectively.
Fertilisers
Synthetic fertiliser feeds half the world — the Haber-Bosch process is one of humanity's most consequential inventions. The cost is nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 270 times more potent than CO₂, released every time nitrogen meets soil.
Hysata
FeaturedAustralia
The economics of green hydrogen have always come down to one problem: electricity is the dominant input cost, and existing electrolysers waste too much of it.
Hysata's fundamentally different approach uses a capillary-fed electrolysis cell underpinned by two key innovations: an ultra-low resistance separator and bubble-free operation — eliminating the primary sources of energy loss in conventional designs and achieving 95% system efficiency, a step change that already exceeds IRENA's efficiency target for 2050.
The commercial implications are significant.
The increased efficiency produces 580kg of green hydrogen per day per MW of electrolyser capacity, compared to around 470kg for incumbent systems, and could save green hydrogen producers an estimated US$3 billion in renewables capex for a typical one million tonne per annum project.
The design also simplifies manufacturing — generating far less waste heat, requiring twenty times less liquid per megawatt than a conventional alkaline electrolyser, and lending itself to modular, scalable production.
Founders
PlasmaLeap
FeaturedAustralia
Conventional ammonia production via the Haber-Bosch process is one of the most energy-intensive and emissions-heavy industrial processes on earth, consuming around 1–2% of global energy and responsible for a significant portion of the fertiliser sector's N₂O footprint. The process is also inherently centralised — large plants, long supply chains, and significant transportation and storage risk.
PlasmaLeap has developed a zero-emissions ammonia synthesis process that consumes only air and water, powered by variable renewable electricity, with pilot units on track to demonstrate world-leading energy efficiency rates competitive with traditional ammonia production.
The modular units generate cost-competitive green nitrogen fertiliser on-demand and on-farm. It is decentralised and safe — deployable on-farm or on-site for industrial settings, avoiding transportation risks and eliminating the risk of large-scale combustion or explosion associated with conventional ammonia handling.
Founders
Investors
Investible, Gates Foundation
Norway
Norwegian company using non-thermal plasma reactors to fix nitrogen from air and water on-farm — producing renewable liquid fertiliser from electricity, while reducing ammonia emissions from slurry, backed by Yara and Norsk Hydro.
Nitricity
USA
San Jose startup producing nitrogen fertiliser from air, water and solar electricity using on-farm plasma reactors — eliminating the Haber-Bosch supply chain and converting surplus renewable electricity directly into fertiliser value at the field.
Livestock
There is no electrification pathway for a cow. Livestock methane is a biological problem, not an engineering one — the answers lie in what we feed animals, how we farm them, and ultimately what we eat.
Halter
FeaturedNew Zealand
A solar-powered smart collar for cows so farmers can make better farming decision through better data. By leveraging GPS, ML, and behavioural insights, Halter allows farmers to automate tasks such as grazing management, fencing, and animal health monitoring. This improves farm efficiency and reducing animal stress by ensuring optimal grazing conditions.
Founders
Investors
Regrow
USA
Regrow is an agricultural MRV platform that uses remote sensing and AI to measure Scope 3 farm emissions across global food supply chains — replacing survey-based estimates with field-level, IPCC Tier 3 data and supporting CSRD, CDP, and carbon credit reporting.
Sea Forest
Australia
Sea Forest grows red seaweed containing a compound that reduces cattle methane emissions by up to 98% when added to feed at less than 1% of dry matter — one of the most potent interventions available for agricultural emissions.
Soil Carbon
Conventional agriculture has been drawing down soil carbon for centuries. Regenerative farming can reverse that — making farmland a carbon sink rather than a source, while improving the land in the process.
Loam
Australia
Globally scalable carbon sequestration by incentivising farmers to get carbon back into the soil. By coating seeds with the microbial inoculum before sowing, the plants and the microbes work together to build carbon in the soil and keep it there, increasing soil health, offering higher yields and boosting the bottom line for growers.