James Clement III, MBA ’21, a Texas rancher whose family has been raising cattle for 170 years, sees an invaluable resource below the surface of America’s grasslands that offers a natural way to combat greenhouse gas emissions: carbon.

The country’s grasslands protect carbon better than trees, which are declining in number because of forest fires, drought, and climate change, according to Clement, a graduate of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. “North American grasslands are the most important ecosystem in the world for capturing carbon more than anything else,” he said at a talk at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management on October 28.

Clement, a senior vice president and general manager of grass and rangeland at EarthOptics, a soil data measurement and mapping company, discussed how the science of measuring carbon in soil is not only mitigating climate change but is also creating an opportunity for farmers to monetize it on the carbon credit market.

Farmers are now selling carbon credits to companies such as Microsoft, Nestlé, and ExxonMobil to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. “It all boils down to a ton of carbon equals a credit, and that gets traded throughout the country,” Clement told a group of 245 freshmen enrolled in the introductory course AEM1101: Design Your Dyson.

Clement was the third speaker to visit the Dyson School this fall as part of the Thoreau Planetary Solutions Initiative, a new program aimed at supporting students who want to pursue careers in the sustainable business sector.

Read the full story on the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business website.

Sherrie Negrea is a freelancer for the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.