Reef Credit Initiative

The Reef Credit Scheme is an environmental market that pays landholders for on-farm actions that improve water quality by reducing pollutants entering the Great Barrier Reef, without compromising the productivity of their land.

Reef Credits are tradable units that quantify and value the work undertaken by landholders to improve water quality flowing into the Reef.

Reef Credits provide a credible, unique and robust market that opens the door to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment, helping organisations meet their environmental targets while protecting the future of the Great Barrier Reef.

How it works: Similar to the carbon offset market, the Reef Credit Scheme pays landholders for improved water quality resulting from their on-farm actions, without compromising the productivity of their land.Each Reef Credit is a tradable unit representing a quantifiable volume of nutrient, pesticide or sediment prevented from entering the Great Barrier Reef catchment. The monetary value of these Credits provides landholders with an additional, diversified income stream, enabling them to integrate sustainable practices into their existing operations.

Reef Credits can then be sold to those seeking to invest in water quality improvements, such as government, private sector and philanthropists.On the buyer side, each Reef Credit provides a measurable, audited water quality outcome, tracked against internationally recognised targets and based on actual reduction in pollutants entering the Reef.

Buyers surrender the Reef Credits to enable them to track the outcomes towards their environmental foot-print.Three Reef Credit Methodologies have been developed so far, with more being developed under the Reef Credit Standard in parallel with the Program Guide. One methodology has been formally approved, for dissolved inorganic nitrogen reduction through Nitrogen Use Efficiency.

Methods for sediment reduction through gully repair and nitrogen reduction through wetland are being finalised.