London, UK – Wednesday, 2 February, 2022
The tool is used in more than 140 countries to measure on-farm environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions, water efficiency, biodiversity impact and is applicable to a large range of crop and livestock farming systems globally.
Benefits of the new CFT 1.0 updates
Over time, updating the Cool Farm Tool models has become increasingly necessary. Evolving science such as the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (short: 2019 Refinement) is one of the biggest reasons for this update. The following are benefits of the new version:
- Improved emission estimates which will be more specific to each individual farmer’s situation – and hence provide better guidance on reduction potentials and options;
- Some errors will be fixed that were known but hadn’t been fixed for the same reason new science hadn’t been implemented – to maintain stability for assessment comparisons over time;
- Keep up with the latest science to ensure the calculations are accurate, consistent, and reliable at this critical juncture in the Decade of Action.
The deployment of CFT 1.0 strengthens the trust in a credible, standardised tool that enables the agri-food industry to encourage, motivate and reward regenerative practices and to contribute to a net-zero emissions world. The release is part of Cool Farm’s new development strategy, with major releases annually, and minor updates fortnightly. These minor updates will not affect existing calculations but are incremental and may offer users improved options (e.g. adding biochar and feed additives).
Learn more…
Over the past months, we have extensively reported about the release of this new version:
+All changes to the CFT Version 1.0 are explained in detail on our release plan news page
+ In December we reported about the key findings from user testing – read about the findings here to stay informed
+ In our recent blog post, we asked Jon Hillier (University of Edinburgh) and David McMahon (Cool Farm) what the implemented changes mean for the Cool Farm Tool.
+ See the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories – https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2019rf/index.html
