“There’s really no value in carbon and the best practices that improve soil,” says Torri Estrada, executive director of the Carbon Cycle Institute, which advocates for carbon farming and regenerative land management. “I think if there was, farmers would be integrating that, but there isn’t really. Like one of our farmers said, ‘If I got paid to grow carbon I would grow the heck out of it.'” Technically, many farmers can already get paid to “grow carbon”—they just don’t get paid very much, either because the value of the credit is too low, or because intermediaries and fees eat into their profit margins.

Maybe a more competitive market would help.

A Seattle-based startup called Nori is working to create just that. It proposes using a blockchain-based platform to create a market in which companies that wish to offset their own carbon emissions can pay farmers directly for carbon sequestered. Co-founder Christophe Jospe says Nori won’t charge farmers listing fees, and that farmers will get 100 percent of the value of the carbon removal credit. And the company will not artificially constrict the carbon removal credit marketplace, as is common in other voluntary and compulsory carbon-offset markets. Nori’s co-founders hope that this liquidity will attract investors looking for a financial opportunity who might not have otherwise participated in a carbon removal marketplace, and thus raise the value of carbon removal credits overall.

Before he co-founded Nori, Jospe worked for the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University and eventually started his own carbon management consulting firm. He has dedicated his professional life to reversing climate change, but is convinced that one of the best mechanisms to do so is through tapping into our natural self-interest—one could even say greed. Jospe says he spoke to one potential client, “the kind of guy who has his money in the Virgin Islands,” and a climate-change denier to boot, who “loved” the idea for Nori because “he understood how he could make money on it.”

Using the blockchain also solves some of the problems with other carbon offset markets, including double-counting. With a blockchain-based accounting platform, Nori can prove to buyers that the credits they purchase are retired and not resold to other companies.

Nori also broadens the scope of activity that can be rewarded. Existing carbon offset schemes in the agricultural industry are narrowly focused on credits for actions like reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizer or encouraging cover crops. With Nori, if carbon sequestration can be verified, a carbon removal credit can be made and sold.