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Paper short abstract

This communication examines how the integration of soils into carbon markets reshapes soil carbon data production in soil sciences. It shows how soil carbon commodification fuels a “measurement race” in the academic sector, driving the creation of new standards and frameworks.

Paper long abstract

A recent opinion piece by soil scientists opens with the claim: “Soil carbon is for sale” (Saifuddin et al. 2024), highlighting the recent expansion of voluntary carbon offset markets into agricultural soils. This expansion reframes soil carbon as a tradable climate mitigation asset, yet soil carbon — caught in a dynamic cycle between soils, plants and the atmosphere — resists straightforward transformation into standardized carbon credits. This situation gives rise to numerous efforts in the academic sphere to render soil carbon and its evolutions measurable through the set-up of a monitoring-reporting-verification (MRV) framework to support and guide public and private engagement in carbon markets. This communication examines how the inclusion of soils into carbon markets reshapes soil carbon data production, standardization and mobilization in the scientific sphere. The analysis draws on an empirical investigation into the French and European soil carbon research community, combining over seventy interviews with soil scientists, observations of scientific conferences and research infrastructures, and analysis of grey literature and scientific publications. The commodification of soil carbon generates new demands for soil carbon data, giving rise to a “measurement race” (Valiergue 2020) in the academic sector, but also new constraints, leading to renewed efforts to standardize and harmonize its production. In this process, soil carbon data becomes not only a tool for understanding soil and climate dynamics but also the building block of a carbon market, contributing to STS debates on the shifting relevance of environmental data in the Anthropocene.