What was your background before coming to Carbon Credits Consulting?
I have always been passionate about nature, agriculture and food, the way it is produced and its value within society. That is why I graduated in Land and Agro-Forestry Sciences in Bologna and then moved to the Netherlands, to Wageningen, where I obtained a Master’s degree in Plant Sciences, specialising in natural resource management.
While abroad, I had the opportunity to learn more about a side of agriculture and the environment that I did not know, the side that combines technology with ecology, agricultural production, and land protection. As a result, my first internship experience also focused on regenerative agriculture and its role in today’s society. During the internship, I specifically engaged with the local environment and Dutch farmers and became acquainted with many sustainable and uncommon agronomic practices. The aim of the research project I was part of was to define and validate with scientific data the principles of regenerative agriculture, which is much talked about but little defined at the moment, including its potential role in climate mitigation and carbon sequestration.
In this sense, there are several topics that I am passionate about, among them are technology applied to agro-ecological practices (my master’s thesis dealt with an AI algorithm for the recognition of wild plants), soil regeneration and restoration, and the rediscovery of sustainable practices to be introduced in increasingly industrialized systems.
These include agroforestry, which I discovered in the Netherlands and which, perhaps indirectly, together with the internship experience, led me to explore the voluntary carbon market and thus to start working at Carbon Credits Consulting.
What is your role as Regenerative Agricolture Specialist at CCC? What are your main activities?
As Regenerative Agriculture Specialist, I am in charge of developing, evaluating and analysing projects that generate carbon credits from the agricultural sector. The voluntary market is expanding rapidly in this sector and there are more and more opportunities of this kind.
In addition, together with the technical team, I assess new opportunities in the forestry sector and develop the most promising projects for generating credits with a high environmental and social impact.
This ranges from documents of hundreds of pages to read and study to endless tables in Excel, from the most peculiar scientific articles to the analysis of maps and satellite data.
From time to time, I cook for my colleagues, but I would not include it among the main activities of my job!
What is your favorite part of working at CCC?
My favorite part is project development, getting to work on the data and making choices that then have an impact on the structure and purpose of the project.
In addition, the fact that a project is extremely complex because it includes both the technical-scientific and the economic-social parts allows me to come into contact with many different disciplines and learn something new each time, even on topics that are not directly related to my university education.
This aspect is one of the most stimulating ones, not only within the projects, but also extending it to the whole voluntary carbon market. In fact, being a young and developing market, it brings together many of the most innovative companies and organizations, both technologically and in terms of social impact. In this way, we are always up to date on the most interesting innovations and are often led to think about how the market will evolve.
What do you like to do in your free time?
First, I am a sportsman, I like running and testing myself on the hills of Bologna (notoriously difficult for runners) and lately I have taken up tennis, which helps me relieve stress to the detriment of a little yellow ball. My lifelong sporting passion, however, is football; I am a big Roma fan, which makes me suffer (a lot) and rejoice (very little).
I love music! I play the guitar and I like to sing; I would like to learn to write music and lyrics and maybe even accompany myself on the piano. If I then play with other friends then it’s the perfect equation!
I am very divided between the sea and the mountains, but I love long walks in the woods and getting to the top of the mountains. Next goal: paragliding, so I can go even higher.
