Senior Carbon Scientist

Anthesis Esp; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Hybrid work model (up to 2-3 days from

Monthly medical allowance

Professional development opportunities

Work with international team (SA & NL)

Job summary

Anthesis Group in South Africa seeks a Senior Carbon Scientist to lead soil carbon modelling and verification activities for carbon farming programmes. You will develop and validate Roth-C based quantification, support VM0042 version transitions, and work with data platforms, auditors and project teams across SA and the Netherlands.

The role blends scientific excellence with practical application, requiring clear communication to farmers, buyers and auditors.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in quantitative environmental discipline (PhD welcome)
• At least four years of post-qualification experience in soil carbon or GHG quantification
• Hands-on experience with process-based soil carbon models (Roth-C, DNDC, DayCent)
• Working knowledge of VCS programmes and related methodologies
• Strong applied statistics and fluency in R or Python
• Ability to translate technical material for non-technical audiences
• Right to live and work in South Africa

Responsibilities

• Lead the research component for Roth-C soil carbon modelling across VM0042 projects.
• Draft model validation reports and respond to reviewer/auditor comments.
• Ensure model validation against measured soil data per VM0042 requirements.
• Contribute to soil sampling design and field protocols.
• Track Verra revisions and plan transitions for projects.
• Update project descriptions, monitoring plans and templates for new versions.
• Prepare requests to Verra and coordinate responses.
• Build quantitative baselines and assess additionality for projects.
• Define data requirements for MRV platforms and build reproducible pipelines.
• Coordinate evidence packs for validation/verification bodies.
• Support feasibility and expansion into new geographies and farming systems

Skills

Roth-C model

Statistics

R

Python

Science communication

Education

Master's degree

PhD (welcome)

Tools

R

Python

QGIS

Google Earth Engine

Job description

Senior Carbon Scientist

Department: Carbon Project Development : Carbon Credits Own Development

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: South Africa - Cape Town

Description

Anthesis Group is the world's largest dedicated sustainability consultancy.

We have more than 1,500 experts across 46 offices in 23 countries, and we are a certified B-Corporation.

Our Carbon Development Unit is co-led from South Africa and the Netherlands, and has contracted over 20 million tonnes of carbon credits worldwide.

Anthesis South Africa develops, verifies and transacts carbon credits across agriculture, renewable energy, household energy, waste and nature-based solutions.

Our carbon farming portfolio operates exclusively on Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) VM0042 methodology (Improved Agricultural Land Management) and includes AgriCarbon (VCS 2554), which in March 2025 became the first project in Africa to issue credits under VM0042; SARA (VCS 3432), covering Argentina, Paraguay and Chile; and ReTerra Brazil (VCS 5774).

We are a member of the Project Developer Forum, and a founding member of the Southern Africa Carbon Markets Association.

Our work is built on market integrity, scientific rigour and real sustainable development co-benefits.

The role

You will carry out and quality-assure the soil carbon science and modelling that sits underneath our carbon farming programmes and broader nature based projects. Your role will support the models, the sampling design the statistics, and building and maintaining a robust and transparent evidence trail that stands up to a verification audit.

You will also help us manage change. Verra continues to revise the VCS Standard and associated methodologies, and each new version has real consequences for registered projects as well as those in the pipeline. You will work out what each change means, then lead the transition.

This is a hands‑on scientific role, and its consequences are commercial as much as technical. The quality of the carbon quantification helps us determine how many credits we issue, and these credits fund the programme and reward our farmers.

You will report to our Principal Carbon Specialist – Nature-based Solutions and work closely with our carbon developers, analysts, agronomy partners and data platform teams in South Africa and the Netherlands.

The role combines scientific excellence with practical application, requiring the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, accessible language for a range of audiences, including auditors, project teams, farmers, and buyers.

Key Responsibilities

Carbon quantification and modelling

• Lead the research component required for running, calibrating, and re-validating the Roth-C soil organic carbon model as implemented across our VM0042 projects. Ensure model validation results are correctly and clearly interpreted.
• Lead the drafting of model validation reports and the responses to comments from reviewers, independent modelling experts, and auditors related to the model validation or soil carbon quantification.
• Ensure model performance is validated against measured soil data following guidance and requirements stipulated by VM0042 and it’s associated tools and modules. Document the evidence so a third party can reproduce it.
• Ensure alignment of model validation outcomes to uncertainty deductions as required by VM0042 and it’s associated tools and modules.
• Contribute to soil sampling design (including statistical analyses for sample size calculations aligned to stratification of project areas), and maintain the in-field soil sampling protocol to meet the evolving requirements of VM0042 and it’s associated tools and modules.

Methodology and standard version transitions

• Track Verra's revisions to the VCS Standard, VM0042 and the associated quantification modules. Attend relevant webinars and provide key feedback to the broader team in a timeous manner.
• Assess what each version change means for each project, and help set out the transition plan and timeline.
• Update the quantification components of project descriptions, monitoring plans and any supporting workbooks to meet new version requirements. Ensure templates are up-to-date and aligned for submission to Verra’s Digital Hub.
• Prepare deviation, revision and methodology clarification requests, and handle Verra's queries through to resolution.

Carbon project development

• Build the quantitative basis for baseline scenarios, including baseline soil carbon stock assessments and the modelled baseline trajectory
• Carry out the common-practice and land-management analysis for the project region to support the additionality case
• Support on the delineation and justification of eligible project areas, drawing on spatial data, land-use history and eligibility criteria set out by the applicable methodology
• Draft the technical quantification sections of project descriptions and monitoring reports for VCS registration and issuance.
• Support feasibility work for new projects alongside the project development team, providing methodology or ecosystem-specific carbon estimate ranges aligned to scoped project activities
• Support expansion into new geographies, crops and farming systems across Africa and beyond.

MRV, data and systems

• Define the soil and quantification data requirements for our digital MRV platforms.
• Build reproducible, version-controlled analysis pipelines in R or Python.
• Quality-assure farm activity data relevant to quantification, and close gaps with our field, agronomy and farmer support teams.

Validation and verification

• Assemble quantification evidence packs for validation and verification bodies.
• Respond to corrective action requests, clarification requests and forward action requests, and close them on schedule.
• Coordinate independent model evaluation where a methodology calls for it.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

Essential

• A Master's degree in a quantitative environmental discipline, for example: quantitative ecology, biogeochemistry, environmental or ecosystem science, agronomy, soil science or a closely related discipline. This is a firm requirement. A PhD is welcome.
• At least four years of relevant post-qualification experience in soil carbon, greenhouse gas quantification or quantitative environmental research. Strong candidates with demonstrable, proven competence in these areas will also be considered with fewer years of post-qualification experience.
• Hands‑on experience with a process‑based soil carbon or biogeochemical model, such as Roth-C, DNDC, or DayCent.
• Working knowledge of the VCS Programme and at least one agricultural, forestry or land‑use methodology.
• Strong applied statistics and fluency in R or Python.
• The ability to research and synthesise technical material and translate it into forms for a non‑technical audience. This is central to the role. You will write for auditors, farmers and buyers, and each audience needs something different. A strong candidate can move between technical and plain‑language for delivery without losing accuracy.
• The right to live and work in South Africa.

Advantageous

• Direct VM0042 experience, at validation, verification or issuance.
• Exposure to other nature‑based solutions methodologies, such as ARR (VM0047), REDD+, (VM0048), sustainable grassland management (VM0032), and blue carbon (VM0033)
• Exposure to other carbon standards, such as Gold Standard, Puro, Plan Vivo and their respective nature‑based methodologies
• Familiarity with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, and how ITMOs affect project eligibility and credit accounting
• GIS and remote sensing skills applied to land‑sector carbon work, for example delineating and stratifying project areas, mapping land‑use and land‑cover change, or deriving activity data from satellite imagery and using tools such as Google Earth Engine, QGIS, or R / Python for these analyses.
• Peer‑reviewed publications in biogeochemistry, soil or ecosystem carbon, quantitative ecology, agronomy or greenhouse gas science.
• Demonstrable science‑communication experience, for example, translating technical findings into briefings, reports, or presentations for non‑specialist audiences.
• Experience of African or Latin American smallholder or commercial farming systems.
• Afrikaans, Portuguese or Spanish.

How you work

The role rewards a particular disposition more than any single technique. You are evidence‑first, in the sense that you would rather find the weakness in your own number than have an auditor find it for you; where a result is well‑supported you will say so plainly, and where it rests on thin or borrowed data you will flag the uncertainty rather than smooth it over.

You are comfortable working under methodologies that keep changing, and you plan around that rather than being unsettled by it. Because the quantification is what ultimately funds the programme and pays our farmers, you understand that delay carries a real cost, and you leave a clean, reproducible audit trail for every calculation you touch.

While much of the work is independent, you keep colleagues across South African and the Netherlands informed as a matter of course, without needing to be asked.

Job Benefits

• Flexible working hours with flexibility around start and finish times.
• Hybrid working model offering up to 2-3 days working from home per week.
• Monthly medical allowance to support healthcare costs.
• Collaborative and purpose‑driven team focused on delivering impactful climate and nature‑based solutions projects.
• Opportunity to work on innovative carbon farming and nature‑based solutions projects across Africa and beyond.
• Work alongside a highly technical and international team spanning South Africa and the Netherlands.
• Professional development opportunities within a rapidly growing carbon and sustainability sector.
• Flexible and supportive working environment that promotes work‑life balance.