Advancing Soil Carbon Measurement for Sustainable Food Systems with Chris Tolles of Yard Stick

Hardware to Save a Planet

Access to economically viable solutions to measure soil carbon at scale is a game changer in our ability to improve our food systems and also improve our land's ability to store carbon.

Welcome to this special episode of Hardware to Save a Planet. Joining us today is Chris Tolles, Co-Founder and CEO of Yard Stick, a company on a mission to reduce soil carbon measurement costs by 90%. This will pave the way for improving our ecosystem health, restoring soil health, and combating climate change.

Join us as we examine soil carbon measurement and its impact on food systems and carbon storage. They discuss the challenges and opportunities of soil carbon measurement, the economic aspects of carbon removal, and the role of data in driving behavior change. Chris shares the potential of using spectroscopy for faster and more efficient soil carbon measurement and discusses its impact on agriculture, climate change, and economic value. Our conversation explores the intersection of agriculture, climate change, and carbon removal, offering valuable insights and inspiration.

“Climate change threatens all humanity. I want to help fix it. I run Yard Stick pbc, which measures soil carbon viably and at scale.” Chris Tolles

Chris is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yard Stick, a company that provides easy, accurate, and affordable quantification of soil carbon stocks. The company aims to enable gigaton-scale agricultural carbon sequestration via scalable, trustworthy measurement solutions. The company is the measurement backbone of soil carbon.

Scientists and farmers alike have known for decades that climate-friendly agricultural practices can potentially remove atmospheric GHGs at gigaton/year scale. However, significant measurement challenges have held soil carbon back - until now. By reducing the cost of statistically sound and agronomically legitimate soil carbon measurement by 90%+, Yard Stick aims to dramatically expand the opportunities for evidence-based regenerative agriculture and ranching practices to simultaneously improve ecosystem health, increase farmer/rancher livelihoods, and combat climate change.

Chris also mentors various startups in the Boston area and loves helping other founders. He is especially interested in mentorship among underrepresented founder communities (e.g. female and nonbinary, BIPOC, immigrant).

“If you're a founder wondering if I can help you, please hit me up and let's find out!”

Episode Resource

• Chris Tolles on LinkedIn
• Yard Stick Website
• Yard Stick Project Images
• Dylan Garrett on LinkedIn
• Synapse Website
• Hardware to Save a Planet Apple Podcasts
• Hardware to Save a Planet Spotify

Hardware to Save a Planet is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Peter Reinhardt of Charm Industrial, Carlos Araque of Quaise, Noah McQueen of Heirloom, Areeb Malik of Glacier, Jeff Satwicz of Bigbelly, Abe Schneider of Natel Energy, Insiya Jafferjee of Shellworks, Paul Gross of Remora, Erika Boeing of Accelerate Wind and Daniel Betts of Blue Frontier.
Check out our three most downloaded episodes:

• A Sustainable Approach to Direct Air Capture with Noah McQueen, Head of Research & Co-Founder of Heirloom
• Innovative Waste Recycling: AI and Robotics with Areeb Malik, Co-founder of Glacier
• Developing an Environmentally-Friendly and Fish-Saving Hydropower Turbine with Abe Schneider, Co-founder and CTO of Natel Energy

If you have an interesting hardware solution to the climate crisis and would like the opportunity to share this with our audience, please complete this Guest Application form: https://fame.so/syn