Agri-food leaders are forming an alliance to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality in Canada’s agri-food sector by 2050.

The Canadian Alliance for Net−Zero Agri−food (CANZA), which can be translated as the Canadian Alliance for a Carbon Neutral Agriculture and Food Sector, brings together companies such as RBC, Loblaw, Maple Leaf Foods, Nutrien and McCain Foods. as well as the ‘Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, The Natural Step Canada, the Smart Prosperity Institute and BCG’s Center for Canada’s Future.

In a press release, the alliance says emissions from the agri-food sector could reach 196 million tonnes, or 19% of Canada’s total, by 2050 if it continues on its current trajectory.

The alliance’s first two initiatives focus on promoting climate-smart agriculture and building a national biogas production network.

One of the biggest gaps the group wants to close is how to measure carbon storage and issue carbon credits for that storage, RBC president and CEO Dave McKay said during an alliance launch event in downtown Toronto. CANZA wants to build a system to measure, report and verify carbon storage and offsets, he said.

“One of our main goals is to create this system, which doesn’t exist yet, and then expand it across the country,” he explained.

According to the CANZA website, the alliance “began the design, development and field testing” of new tools for such a system, starting with a pilot project in Saskatchewan with researchers from the University of Guelph and the University of Saskatchewan.

Emissions measurement also needs to be improved, said Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, at the event. Currently, emissions tracking is fragmented, and one of the alliance’s goals is to find a way to make emissions tracking more accurate and real-time, he added.

According to Galen Weston, chairman and president of Loblaw, standardization across the entire chain is a key goal of the alliance, whether it’s standardizing processes or labeling products for customers.

“We’re trying to bring all of these different approaches together in one place to take them from small, highly innovative projects to large, impactful initiatives.”

David Hughes, CEO of nonprofit The Natural Step Canada, said in the press release that Canada is poised to become a “global model for sustainable agriculture.”

CANZA said it aims to advance the technology, policy, infrastructure and financing needed to support the agri-food sector in transitioning to carbon-neutral production.