A simple carbon offset scenario tool (COST) for assessing sheep enterprise intervention options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The sheep Carbon Offset Scenario Tool (COST) was developed to explore the influence of various diet manipulations and flock management intervention strategies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Australian sheep farms. It is a temporally‐static spreadsheet‐based tool that uses Australian GHG inventory methodologies, algorithms and emission factors to estimate carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, as CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e). The sheep COST calculator provides a baseline farm and allows ten intervention strategies to compare and contrast. Each intervention strategy contains four sections: 1) baseline farm data specific to the strategy explored, 2) strategy‐specific key variables, 3) productivity changes and 4) GHG and economicrelated results. It also presents a carbon income estimated on the premise that the intervention strategy being examined qualifies as a carbon offset. Users can easily explore the sensitivity of several key variables using spin buttons.