Groundwork BioAg Issues First Verified Carbon Credits Under Rootella Carbon® Program
Milestone issuance of high-durability soil carbon credits , the first under Verra’s VM0042 standard in the US and the first ‘measure and remeasure’ project to ever issue globally, delivers highly-scalable carbon removal at a fraction of durable CDR costs.
01 July 2026, Israel: Groundwork BioAg, the bioagriculture and climatech company behind Rootella®, the world’s leading mycorrhizal inoculant, today announced the issuance of its first verified carbon credits under Rootella Carbon, its Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) program. The issuance of 19,568 Verified Carbon Units (net) has been independently verified by SCS Global under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard and already has multiple purchase agreements signed.
Rootella Carbon is a groundbreaking project that delivers 100% CDR (no avoidance credits) the most cost-effective high durability, high-integrity CDR program on the market today.
Rootella Carbon champions a grower-centric model, ensuring that growers are finally being remunerated for being the stewards of the land: The pool of enrolled farmers receives up to 70% of the net proceeds from carbon credit sales. “We’re seeing positive results in building soil carbon, and those results are being quantified,” said Larry McClendon, a participating grower from Marianna, Arkansas. “This gives me confidence that the Rootella Carbon program is delivering real outcomes.”
The milestone marks the company’s formal transition from pipeline development to active delivery in the voluntary carbon market, establishing Groundwork BioAg as the first to bring mycorrhizal fungi-driven soil CDR (Mycorrhizal Carbon™) to commercial scale under a rigorous third-party registry framework in the US. “This first-of-its-kind issuance represents the holy grail of CDR: scalable, durable, verifiable. We fully intend to disrupt the global CDR market, which delivered a total of 2 MtCO2e last year. In contrast, Rootella Carbon is set to deliver half that amount in the next two years alone,” said Groundwork BioAg CEO Alon Werber.
Grower enrollment scaled from approximately 9,000 acres (3.6 kha) in 2023 to over 700,000 acres (280 kha) of cropland across the US mid-west and Canadian Prairies today. The immediate addressable market is 450 million acres of reduced-tillage farmland across the Americas. Verra CEO Mandy Rambharos said: “VM0042 was designed to bring rigorous, science-based accounting to agricultural land management: a sector with enormous carbon removal potential across US farmland that’s barely been tapped. This first issuance in the country across a program now spanning more than 700,000 acres, shows the methodology working as intended on the ground.”
Mycorrhizal Carbon sequesters 1.5–3.5 tCO₂e/ac (4-9 tCO₂e/ha) annually, approximately 5x greater than published benchmarks for regenerative agricultural practices including cover cropping and no-till. Mycorrhizae drives the formation of Mineral-Associated Organic Matter (MAOM), the persistent carbon pool that is stable for centuries to millennia, regardless of cultivation methods.
“Rootella Carbon was launched under the premise that mycorrhizal fungi serve as nature’s primary pathway for permanent soil carbon sequestration. Verra registration and issuance unlock millions of acres leading to a global climate impact.” said Dr. Yossi Kofman co-founder, former CEO, and now Chairman of the Board.
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