Indigo passes 2 million verified tonnes as the registry's soil protocol tops 2 million credits

Series: Part 2 of 2. Previously: Microsoft agrees to buy 2.85 million tonnes of soil carbon removal from Indigo over 12 years, Indigo says (January 2026).

February 2026 — The Climate Action Reserve said on Feb. 25, 2026 that its Soil Enrichment Protocol had passed 2 million credits issued, after Indigo's project received 1,178,081 credits in its fifth issuance. Here's what happened, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of Feb. 25, 2026)

Outcome: 1,178,081 credits issued to Indigo U.S. Project No. 1, its fifth issuance. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)
Indigo's total: over 2 million metric tons of removals and reductions since 2018, Indigo says. (Indigo, Feb. 25, 2026)
Cost: credit prices and program costs not disclosed.
Label: 1,842,711 SEP credits tagged with ICVCM's CCP label to date. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

What the registry reported

The registry said it has issued 2,177,020 credits under the protocol, attributed to just two projects. Both are aggregated projects that group many farm operators and fields to make them economically feasible. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

Together the two represent 1,453 growers and 38,066 fields covering 2,500,892 acres across 28 U.S. states, the registry said. The project that pushed it past two million is Indigo U.S. Project No. 1. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026) The other developer is AgriCapture, whose CEO Tyler Hull said it works on rice methane. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

The registry also tagged what it called the carbon market's first sustainable agriculture credits with the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market's Core Carbon Principles label. SEP Version 1.1 received that designation in October 2025, and 1,842,711 SEP credits had been tagged, it said. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

The protocol covers practice changes including fertilizer application, soil amendments, water management, tillage and residue management, planting and harvesting, fossil fuel use and grazing. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

What Indigo says it added

Indigo said it has enrolled more than 8 million acres across 28 states since 2018 and has sequestered and abated 2.1 million metric tons of CO2e. (Indigo, Feb. 25, 2026)

It said it rolled out upgrades to its digital monitoring, reporting and verification platform: simpler enrollment, less time for agronomic data submission, new remote-sensing algorithms for validating field management, and a redesigned buyer data portal with an integrated AI chatbot for corporate due diligence. Indigo didn't put numbers on the time savings. (Indigo, Feb. 25, 2026)

Indigo tied the issuance to demand from buyers, pointing to Microsoft's January agreement for 2.85 million soil carbon removal credits. (Indigo, Feb. 25, 2026, Indigo, Jan. 15, 2026)

Who said what

"Getting credit issuance into the millions under the Soil Enrichment Protocol is not only a fantastic achievement for both the Climate Action Reserve and Indigo, but even more so for the farmers," said Max DuBuisson, Indigo's head of impact and integrity, in the registry's post. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

McKenzie Smith, the registry's associate director of strategic implementation, said the first CCP tags for soil credits are "a significant development and validation of high quality." (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)

What went wrong

Two projects make the whole market. Every credit under the protocol comes from just two developers, so 'two million credits' describes Indigo and AgriCapture, not a broad market. (Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)
Rounding differs. Indigo describes the issuance as 1.1 million credits; the registry's figure is 1,178,081. (Indigo, Feb. 25, 2026, Climate Action Reserve, Feb. 25, 2026)
No price or payout per farmer. Neither source says what the credits sold for or what each farmer received.
Unmeasured AI claims. Indigo gives no figures for how much its remote-sensing algorithms or chatbot improve accuracy or speed.
What we don't know yet: how many of the new credits are committed to Microsoft, and at what price.

Our follow-up question for the Climate Action Reserve

How many SEP credits have been retired, and has any reversal been reported?

Sources

Climate Action Reserve, “Climate Action Reserve surpasses two million credits issued for soil enrichment projects and tags the market's first sustainable agriculture credits with the CCP label,” Feb. 25, 2026. climateactionreserve.org
Indigo Ag, “Indigo Surpasses 2 Million Metric Tons of Verified Soil Carbon Impact with Fifth Credit Issuance,” Feb. 25, 2026. indigoag.com
Indigo Ag, “Indigo to Sell 2.85 Million Tonnes of Carbon Removal to Microsoft,” Jan. 15, 2026. indigoag.com

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder