The Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC) recently released two Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for technical contractors to carry out testing, development and assessment of cost-effective, scalable tools, technologies and models to support ecosystem service markets for agriculture. The work is funded through ESMC’s $20.6M public-private partnership with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and ESMC member organizations as part of a national build-out to prepare for a 2022 ecosystem services market launch.

The first RFP seeks to engage one or multiple partners to identify, assess, test, and map the development of advanced tools and technologies that can more efficiently and cost effectively measure and quantify soil C changes and net GHG reductions to help ESMC generate carbon and GHG assets. The work will include in-field testing of promising innovative tools and technologies on ESMC pilot project sites. View the RFP here.

The second RFP seeks partners to design and implement testing and evaluation of the APEX water quality model as part of ESMC’s Protocol. The work will cover ESMC’s 2020 pilot regions to demonstrate viable water asset generation, identify modeling improvements or adaptations, recommend Protocol refinements, and identify opportunities to support model calibration, validation, expansion and automation. The RFP may be viewed here.

Proposals are due by Friday, April 7, to ESMC. Go to the ESMC website for complete information at: http://www.ecosystemservicesmarket.org/esmc-technical-rfps/.

Read the full press release here.