May & June 2025 ESMC Newsletter
ESMC Is Moving to an Inventory-Based Accounting Approach for Our Program
We are currently transitioning from an intervention-based accounting approach to an inventory-based approach. By 2026, we will offer inventory-based programs to better align with the evolving expectations of the voluntary market and upcoming European regulatory mandates. This shift reflects a growing demand for large-scale, transparent, and science-based emissions estimates that support both corporate sustainability reporting and jurisdictional accounting frameworks.
Our inventory approach combines the use of field-level data, verified models, remote sensing, and soil sampling. This approach provides efficient, cost-effective, and scalable emissions quantification that results in a clearer connection to national greenhouse gas inventories and Scope 3 reporting needs for supply chain actors.
Importantly, agricultural producers will continue to receive financial support for implementing regenerative agriculture practices, such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, and nutrient management. Our inventory approach will also complement new environmental market opportunities as we aim to offer future add-ons, such as water quality and biodiversity modeling, enhancing the overall value proposition for both producers and buyers.
This transition positions us to meet future market and policy demands while delivering more robust environmental outcomes.
ESMC Joins METI to Advance Scalable, Verified Environmental Outcomes in Agriculture
We recently joined MillPont Environmental Trust Infrastructure (METI™) to further our mission of rewarding agricultural producers for delivering verified environmental benefits. This partnership strengthens the market infrastructure needed to scale regenerative agriculture and ensure the integrity of claims across agricultural supply chains.
METI serves as a geospatial clearinghouse that provides secure, tamper-proof digital deeds for sources of environmental outcomes. By integrating with METI’s Source Ledger, we ensure that transactions through our Eco-Harvest market program–whether for increased soil carbon, net greenhouse gas reductions, improved water quality, and increased biodiversity–remain unique, addressable, and transparent across platforms. Read the full release.
Additionally, as part of MillPont’s ongoing efforts to build the most credible, transparent environmental impact market infrastructure, METI is inviting comments and feedback to the METI Source Rulebook Draft v0.9 by July 20.
Welcoming Ryan Tregaskes as our New CEO
We are pleased to announce that Ryan Tregaskes joined ESMC this month as our new CEO. He is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of leadership in sustainability, business operations, and environmental innovation. With a distinguished career in carbon, renewable energy, and environmental program implementation, Ryan’s technical knowledge will support his leadership of the member-based organization to drive scale in science-backed, producer-involved environmental service markets, which is vitally needed for supply-chain partners and producers alike.
Ryan will lead and grow ESMC’s research and ecosystem services market program, Eco-Harvest. ESMC’s cutting-edge research and producer-involved business model sets the organization apart, which he is deeply committed to. Growing up on a farm, Ryan brings the operational and leadership capabilities ESMC needs to serve the membership, project implementers, and most importantly, agriculture producers.
Emily Johannes, Chair of the ESMC Board of Directors, noted, “Ryan’s deep experience working in agriculture and in carbon markets makes him the ideal CEO to lead ESMC through our next chapter. Not only does he have a strong background in agriculture and appreciation for what farmers do, he grew up on a farm and has also developed and grown environmental market-based programs. We are thrilled that Ryan is joining ESMC.” Read the full announcement.
Welcoming Shivani Tetali to ESMC
Continuing with new staff introductions, meet Shivani Tetali, ESMC’s Product Owner. Shivani drives the end-to-end transformation of ESMC’s MMRV data pipeline—the critical infrastructure that underpins trust, scale, and success in ecosystem service markets. With 8+ years of experience across AgBiotech, Life Sciences, and Pharma, she specializes in turning scientific complexity into clear, usable, and regulatory-aligned digital products with a focus on building systems people can trust, streamlining the painful stuff, and making impact measurable. When not thinking about data architecture or pipeline validation, Shivani can be found outdoors, hiking through North Carolina.
Look for ESMC At….
80th SWCS International Annual Conference
August 3 – 6, 2025; Costa Mesa, California
At the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) 2025 conference, attendees will share successes and embrace lessons learned to advance our natural resource goals with greater speed, efficiency, and effectiveness. ESMC’s President Alana Pacheco will present on Using Technology to Increase Efficiency and Accuracy in Ag Carbon Programs. Read more about the event and register.
Recent Member and Funder News
Nestlé’s Coffee Brand Surpasses Its Regenerative Agriculture Goal for 2025
ESG Dive (June 12)
Nescafé procured 32% of its coffee from farmers that adopted regenerative agriculture practices last year, surpassing a 2025 goal of sourcing 20% of coffee from such methods. Nestlé is an ESMC member. Read the full article.
‘No Lettuce, No Big Mac’: Why Beth Hart Is Steering McDonald’s Towards Regenerative Agriculture
Reuters (April 14)
In August 2020, when McDonald’s (an ESMC member) announced an initiative with farmers in Nebraska to improve soil health, techniques like cover cropping and reduced tillage felt so new that the U.S. restaurant chain was prompted to explain that they were “often called ‘regenerative’ practices”. Fast forward nearly five years, and regenerative agriculture has become sufficiently mainstream to require neither explainers nor quote marks. Indeed, for a company intimately linked to the food supply chain as McDonald’s, the subject has become “one of the biggest strategic focuses of the agricultural side of our business”. Read the full article.
Other News of Note
Climate Change Cuts Global Crop Yields, Even When Farmers Adapt
Stanford University (June 18)
A sweeping new analysis in Nature finds that rising global temperatures will dampen the world’s capacity to produce food from most staple crops, even after accounting for economic development and adaptation by farmers. Read the full article.
Investors Back Initiative to Bolster Regenerative Agriculture in US Midwest
Impact Investor (June 11)
The initiative, backed by the Walton and Rockefeller foundations, aims to deploy multiple capital types to scale up support for regenerative practices in the US agricultural heartland. Read the full article.
‘World’s Largest’ Regenerative Agriculture Study Highlights Productivity Benefits for European Agri-food Sector
FoodBev Media (June 9)
A new study launched by the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture (EARA), funded by EIT Food, has found that farmers can produce ‘significantly more food for less’ by transitioning to regenerative practices. The study involved 78 regenerative farms in 14 countries, covering over 7,000 hectares. It benchmarked these farms against their neighboring and national average conventional farmers, aiming to dispel ‘the myth that only the status quo of conventional, synthetic input-heavy agriculture can feed Europe and the world’. Read the full article.
Implementing Outcome-Based Metrics to Scale Regenerative Agriculture
World Business Council on Sustainable Development (May 30)
To limit global warming to 1.5°C, regenerative agriculture must scale from covering just 15% of global cropland today to at least 40% by 2030. To achieve this agri-food system shift, businesses must align on how to measure, report and support farmers in delivering environmental, social and economic outcomes. A new report assesses the publicly disclosed information of 38 leading agri-food companies. It reveals growing momentum: businesses have converged on a shared vision for regenerative agriculture, aligned on 11 outcomes, and are beginning to implement indicators and metrics that show sectoral uptake. Read the full article.
Fridays on the Farm: Establishing Regenerative Agriculture on the Ranch
NRCS (May 30)
Jim and Stephen West of Sunrise W Land and Cattle Company in McCulloch County, Texas, are a father and son team busy working to establish regenerative farming and management methods on their ranch. Their commitment to the process of regenerative farming, along with help from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), is proving to be a winning combination. Read the full story.
Driving Climate Action in Supply Chains: Conservation International Launches Insetting Principles and Mapping Tool
Conservation.org (May 21)
In response to the growing need for credible corporate strategies that address climate and biodiversity threats, Conservation International recently published a set of principles and launched a new interactive dashboard to guide companies in implementing high-integrity insetting globally. Read the full article and access the dashboard.
Resolving the Tension Between Agriculture and Water Quality in Wisconsin
Marquette University Law School (April 10)
Wisconsin is known for its invaluable array of water resources on the one hand and its heritage as an agricultural powerhouse on the other. At first glance, it seems that Wisconsin policymakers face a dilemma, because these two aspects of the state’s identity can be in tension with one another. Read the full article.
A Case Study of Evapotranspiration at Five Almond Orchards on a Spectrum of Conventional to Regenerative Management
California Agriculture (April 2025)
A new case study demonstrates that regenerative management in almonds leads to improvements in soil moisture retention and does not result in increased evapotranspiration. Read the full report.
