The companies have already been working together to meet the high scientific standards set by the registry-approved soil carbon methodologies in use by the Carbon by Indigo program. Indigo's digital and technological capabilities, along with its diverse network of ag partners, will help scale and enhance Soil Metrics' biogeochemical modeling. In turn, Soil Metrics will be able to leverage Indigo's resources to improve and expand upon its soil carbon modeling capabilities while continuing to deliver services to its existing and future customer base.

Founded in 2019 by Professor Keith Paustian and colleagues at Colorado State University (CSU), Soil Metrics leverages over two decades of peer-reviewed research on agricultural ecosystems to provide industry-leading soil environmental modeling services at commercial scale. Soil Metrics equips private industry stakeholders with university-developed tools like the Daily Century (or DayCent) model that have for years helped public organizations such as the USDA and United Nations generate actionable insights about the environmental mechanics of agricultural lands. By expanding access of CSU's trusted biogeochemical models to private industry stakeholders, Soil Metrics translates beneficial on-farm practices into financial instruments, like traceable sustainability premiums and verified ecosystem credits, for rewarding and promoting farmers' participation in climate-smart opportunities.

Together, Indigo and Soil Metrics will:

• Further understanding of soil carbon and its potential as a climate solution – including opportunities to optimize carbon farming practices to maximize a range of beneficial outcomes and efforts to better map the dynamics of carbon persistence in soils -- with a $1 million contribution to advance public understanding and development of soil carbon solutions (additional details to come).
• Provide improved modeling services to a greater range of third parties to address a broader set of industry sustainability opportunities including maximizing agricultural lands role as a carbon sink, decreasing nitrous oxide and methane outputs in farming, and maximizing financial value for farmers through the optimized production of registry-issued agricultural carbon credits or low carbon commodities.
• Foster ongoing discovery within the scientific community by expanding existing focus on collaboration with global scientific institutions, under the guidance of Dr. Paustian, who also joins Indigo as a scientific advisor.

By joining Indigo as an advisor, Dr. Paustian will inform the growth and direction of the company's scientific research and development efforts to help farmers and leading global brands meet the urgency and demand for climate-smart agricultural insights and solutions.

Scientific rigor underpins Indigo's farmer-first offer design, including the development of the industry's first scalable, high-quality, and registry-approved carbon farming program. The company's investment in Soil Metrics is the latest example of collaboration with the scientific community to advance progress toward a more beneficial agriculture system. Indigo has established research partnerships and grants with leading research institutions, including North Carolina State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and the Woodwell Climate Research Center, among others. In collaboration with farmers across the United States, Indigo researchers are also now in their third year of the Soil Carbon Experiment, a long-term soil study that includes a combination of observational and interventional field-scale research sites that span 12 states and over 130 fields. Today, Indigo continues to deploy a systems-approach to realize a vision of a beneficial agriculture system, one that is more connected and empowered for the benefit of people and the planet.

More information about Soil Metrics can be found here. To learn more about how Indigo is advancing scientific progress, click here.