Zero Net Emissions Agriculture CRC Scholarship (guidance for on-farm greenhouse gas accounting)

Scholarship Information

Award value: AUD $37,746 annually

Level of study: Postgraduate

Australian agriculture faces growing pressure to quantify, report, and reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet the methodological foundations for on-farm GHG accounting remain inconsistent across industry calculators, national inventory methods, and voluntary reporting frameworks. Key unresolved issues, including the treatment of carbon opportunity costs, the permanence of carbon sequestration, the risk of double counting, and the management of reversal risk, create ambiguity for farmers, agribusiness, and policymakers alike, and undermine confidence in emissions reduction claims. This PhD scholarship, funded through the Zero Net Emissions Agriculture CRC (ZNE-Ag CRC), will address these gaps by developing rigorous, nationally consistent guidance for on-farm GHG accounting in Australia. The candidate will focus on land use and carbon sequestration, analysing how methodological choices within accounting frameworks influence incentives for farmers and agribusiness, and how they affect the attribution of emissions reductions across supply chains. The research will be conducted in alignment with international best practice and will seek to harmonise approaches across industry tools, scheme and reporting requirements.