WCA chair Chick Olsson said the Federal Government and Opposition had taken the right stance in excluding agriculture from the emissions trading scheme, while retaining the opportunity for woolgrowers to access "on-farm carbon credits in our future carbon economy".

Wool industry leaders gathered in Sydney this week under the banner of the WCA to explore and recommend policy to Australian Wool Innovation on funding carbon research for the industry.

According to WCA, wool is composed of 50 per cent carbon that has been captured and stored from the atmosphere.

In 2008/09, Australian woolgrowers grew and exported 384 million kgs of greasy wool.

WCA says preliminary estimates indicate that this equates to approximately 500 million kilograms of CO2 equivalents, which have been captured and stored from the atmosphere with each kilogram of greasy wool storing around 1.3 kgs of CO2.

"In addition to being a natural carbon store, wool is produced from a sustainable grassland system which itself has the capacity to store carbon," Mr Olsson said.

"Combine this with woolgrowers' ability to increase soil carbon by improved farming practices, and you have one of the most natural carbon capture systems on the planet."

The WCA wants a global marketing strategy aimed at recognising wool as the fibre of choice for those consumers who wish to make a personal decision in reducing global emissions.

Underpinning this will be a research strategy that includes a complete wool life cycle analysis from paddock right through the wool pipeline to consumer.