Q

Can you describe your Verity program and tell us why it is crucial?

A

Verity is a digital traceability and carbon accounting platform, purpose-built to deliver trust and transparency across supply chains. Using distributed ledger technology, Verity creates an immutable record, from the bushel in the field to the finished product gallon, so downstream customers have full confidence in what they purchase.

If the biobased bumper of your car looks identical to a petroleum-based bumper, how do you know it’s truly biobased and delivers carbon abatement? That requires measurement, reporting, and verification. Verity assigns a unique ID starting with the bushel, gallon, or pound, so that everything from the field that goes into the final product is transparent. It’s a great use case for distributed ledger technology—the parent of blockchain—allowing us to track and prove claims.

Q

Your team sometimes uses the phrase “agriculture done right” in this context. How did that phrase come to mind for this project?

A

It all traces back to the farm. “Agriculture done right” means regenerative practices—low or no-till farming, reduced passes through the field, healthier soils, and higher yields over time.

Verity helps track those improvements and make them part of the entire story. Farmers are doing their part by ensuring more carbon builds up in the soil, avoiding unnecessary emissions through no-till farming, and creating long-term resiliency.

The goal is continuous improvement, and Verity is free for farmers. Today, farmers across four states are using this program. The system shows how farmers are doing more with less, building efficiency into every acre and helping them get rewarded for their results.

Q

Is Verity just for Gevo-sourced feedstocks, or can others use it?

A

Verity is a platform that goes beyond Gevo and is already used by co-ops like Landus and biofuel producers outside of Gevo. While we originally built Verity for our own purposes—to track everything from the field through the final product—we quickly realized others needed it too. Verity has an end-to-end scope: from farm to flight for SAF, and it functions similarly across the complete supply chain for other biofuels and renewable chemicals. Most competitors stop at the farm gate.

Our farmers and downstream customers could try to manage this with spreadsheets, but Verity is a simplified, digital solution that pulls all the data together, assigns unique IDs, and ensures integrity throughout the supply chain.

Q

How many competitors are out there doing something like Verity?

A

There are plenty of companies doing parts and pieces, but those programs often stop at the farm gate. What makes Verity unique is that we take it further—tracking from bushel to gallon to end use, whether that’s biobased chemicals, durable goods, feed, or fuels. We provide one source of truth that works for farmers, processors, and end customers, with dashboards and real-time carbon intensity scoring. That’s what sets Verity apart.

Q

Does this help avoid carbon credit fraud?

A

Absolutely. Double counting has been a real issue in carbon markets. With unique IDs and smart contracts, Verity helps users avoid this issue while making sure to count all the carbon. In fact, Gevo not only sells our line of chemicals and fuels, but we’re also selling durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits into voluntary markets using the highest-quality industry standards and independently certified by Puro.earth. Companies like Nasdaq have already purchased CDR credits from us to offset their emissions in areas like business travel, and that was featured in Nasdaq’s 2024 sustainability report. By combining Verity’s end-to-end traceability with leading third-party verification, we anticipate this will provide trust, transparency, and truth for buyers to know exactly what they’re getting.

Q

Gevo has another great phrase: “above-ground petroleum products.” Can you explain what you mean?

A

Gevo is focused on delivering cost-effective, biobased drop-in replacements for traditional fuels and chemicals derived from petroleum. We aim to develop biobased products that match the materials we’ve relied on for decades, delivering expected performance and fitting seamlessly into our current global infrastructure. And that’s exactly what we enable—creating the same materials, like isobutylene and paraxylene, but now made from a different source: crops above ground rather than oil extracted from below ground. This is a great example of how biobased products can work hand-in-hand with the existing petroleum and petrochemical industries while creating new demand for plant-based products from U.S. agriculture.

Q

How is Gevo also focused on carbon intensity?

A

Carbon intensity measures the greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product, whether kilograms of chemical or megajoules of fuel. For us, it’s about doing more with less: fewer inputs, less fuel, and more efficient processes. Lower carbon intensity means higher efficiency, healthier soils, and often lower costs.

We address both avoidance and removal—through efficiency and regenerative agriculture, and through practices like carbon capture and sequestration. In North Dakota, for example, we capture CO₂ from fermentation and store it underground for more than 1,000 years. Whether avoided or removed, we plan to track every reduction through Verity.

Q

Where do you source your feedstocks?

A

Most of our corn comes locally from North Dakota and the surrounding area, within driving distance of our bioprocessing plants. We continue to demonstrate regenerative practices on more than 200,000 farmed acres, dramatically reducing carbon intensity. Through the Farm to Flight program, over 200 farmers in four states earned more than $10 million through a USDA program for their regenerative efforts. We saw a 10.2 CI point reduction on average, which is 29.5% lower than national averages, and 100% farmer retention. We’re proud to have helped farmers measure and validate their progress while rewarding them for results.

Q

Could you walk us through your alcohol building blocks, ethanol and isobutanol, and why you work with both?

A

We take carbohydrates from crops—corn, soybeans, cellulose, really any carbohydrate—and convert them into alcohol. In the U.S., ethanol is the predominant two-carbon alcohol. Building on that, we developed proprietary technology to make isobutanol, a four-carbon alcohol that unlocks a wider range of applications. Isobutanol can be converted into isobutylene, a key building block for durable rubber components in cars or monomers like methyl methacrylate, which is used for products like plexiglass.

On the ethanol side, our EtO technology transforms ethanol into olefins (EtO), which can be used for polyethylene, acrylic acid, and other essential chemicals derived from renewable and regenerative agriculture. For example, acrylic acid is widely used in paints and in diapers to improve absorbency. We supply this as a biobased component.

Our goal is to deliver a broader, cost-effective portfolio of renewable chemical options for all types of end users.

Q

What are some of your significant partnerships?

A

On the chemicals side, LG Chem is an important partner. As one of the world’s largest chemical companies, they share our vision for renewable building blocks in everyday products like plastics, coatings, and consumer goods. Their involvement demonstrates the scale and real potential of these markets.

On the agriculture side, Landus, a $2.4 billion farmer-owned co-op in Iowa, is using Verity to track both corn and soybeans. That demonstrates how Verity can scale beyond Gevo’s own feedstocks. Instead of juggling spreadsheets, they now have a single digital system that makes sustainability claims simple and reliable.

Q

What policy changes would be most helpful in accelerating renewable chemicals and biobased products?

A

Recognizing and including the benefits of regenerative agriculture practices is key. Programs like the 45Z tax credit, which values carbon intensity, can allow farmers to participate directly, creating more market pull for low-carbon crops. Policies that allow rapid depreciation of new plants also help reduce capital-raise barriers, making projects more competitive on cash costs.

At the end of the day, we know the technology works. Now we need policies that help scale it so farmers can sell more, manufacturers can build more, and the U.S. can lead in fuels and chemicals.

Q

If we had policies that helped scale biobased products, what would it mean for farmers, rural economies, and domestic manufacturing?

A

It all starts at the farm. U.S. agriculture is producing more from existing acres, and farmers need more and growing markets for their crops. We believe biobased products can be cost-competitive today. The challenge is capital costs, which have risen dramatically. That’s where investment and supportive policies are critical.

Scaling the biobased industry would result in stable prices for farmers, new demand for rural economies, and more resilient domestic manufacturing. We can do it better, cheaper, and in a way that strengthens the U.S. supply chain and our ag economy.

Q

What benefits have you seen from working with PBPC?

A

PBPC brings together a network of producers all trying to do the right thing—make renewable products better, faster, and cheaper. Collaboration and shared learnings are invaluable.

Just as importantly, PBPC provides strong policy support and advocacy, helping members navigate regulations that can unintentionally disadvantage biobased products. They work to identify barriers, streamline processes, and make sure renewable products have a fair path to market in the U.S. and globally.