🎙️ Untangling Climate Finance: Building Soil Carbon Projects at Scale with Elliot Formal
November 10, 2026
🎙️ Untangling Climate Finance: Building Soil Carbon Projects at Scale with Elliot Formal
Listen to this episode of Untangling Climate Finance by clicking any of the streaming platforms below!
“The future of soil carbon removal won’t be built by carbon companies alone. It will be built by the farmers and ranchers who are managing millions of acres across the world every day.”
— Elliot Formal
In our newest episode of Untangling Climate Finance, we are asking what it takes to build a soil carbon project that farmers, ranchers, and buyers can all trust.
In this episode, Jay sits down with Elliot Formal, CEO of Agoro Carbon Alliance, to look at how a soil carbon developer turns regenerative practices on working farms and ranches across 34 states into verified carbon removal credits. Elliot came to carbon markets through finance, and he explains how that lens shapes the way he runs the business.
Elliot and Jay discuss:
- How Agoro measures soil carbon across cropland and rangeland, with more than 110,000 soil samples behind its approach under Verra’s VM0042
- What keeps producers in a program through 10-year contracts, and why Elliot reports grower retention above 95 percent
- What Microsoft’s due diligence looked like on the way to a 12-year agreement and the first credits delivered under it
- The tougher questions buyers now ask about measurement, additionality, and permanence
- How the voluntary carbon market’s demand headwinds are pushing developers to prove integrity, and where durable demand for soil carbon removals is building
Soil carbon works only when the science, the producers, and the buyers line up. This episode is about how one developer keeps all three in view.
For more information on Agoro Carbon Alliance’s work, visit agorocarbonalliance.com.
To connect with GKS, or to share feedback on the podcast, reach out to us at: communications@gordianknotstrategies.com
Enjoy the ep!
Gordian Knot Strategies
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