Ports, airports, highway authorities, and rail operators: major transportation infrastructure managers have become key players in the French and European energy transition.
Faced with growing requirements regarding net positive biodiversity (NPB), CSRD reporting, and carbon offset strategies, they are seeking practical tools to quantify and demonstrate the value of their environmental initiatives. The Low Carbon Label is one such tool.
Transportation activities generate significant direct and indirect emissions: aircraft kerosene, maritime freight, and highway traffic. Even with improvements in energy efficiency, a portion of these emissions will remain difficult to eliminate. Carbon offsetting is becoming a strategic necessity for achieving carbon neutrality goals.
Ports, airports, and highways occupy vast tracts of land: a major international airport covers between 1,500 and 3,000 hectares, a significant portion of which consists of green spaces, berms, and undeveloped areas. These spaces represent considerable potential for carbon sequestration and biodiversity that can be optimized and harnessed through LBC.
The 2016 Biodiversity Act introduced a requirement for major projects to ensure there is no net loss of biodiversity. The European Nature Restoration Law (2023) moves in the same direction. Infrastructure operators must demonstrate that they are offsetting the impacts of their activities on biodiversity.
An infrastructure manager can generate LBC credits on its own right-of-way by optimizing the management of its green spaces:
When the organization’s own land holdings are insufficient, the manager can fund LBC projects carried out by third parties (farmers, local governments, forest owners) and thus count these offsets toward its carbon footprint.
The rights-of-way of major transportation infrastructure projects represent significant carbon sinks:
| Type of right-of-way | Typical floor area | Estimated carbon reserves (20 years) |
|---|---|---|
| Self-supporting berms | 2–5 ha/km | 10–30 tons of CO₂ per hectare |
| Airport green spaces | 200–500 ha | 5–20 t CO₂/ha |
| Undeveloped port areas | 50–200 ha | 8–25 t CO₂/ha |
For a 100-kilometer highway network, the potential carbon sink provided by road shoulders could amount to several hundred tons of CO₂ per year.
Managing LBC credits across large tracts of land requires monitoring tools capable of covering vast areas on a regular and cost-effective basis. The analysis of satellite and aerial imagery meets this need by enabling:
The Low Carbon Label fits naturally into infrastructure managers' CSR strategies, at the intersection of several reporting frameworks:
Beyond financial and regulatory considerations, the LBC serves as a tool for engaging with stakeholders: local residents, environmental organizations, and licensing authorities. It provides quantified and verified evidence of the operator’s commitment to offsetting its environmental impact.
Netcarbon conducts a carbon and biodiversity assessment of your land holdings, an essential first step in any LBC strategy. Contact us for an evaluation of your carbon sequestration potential.
