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From 1 January 2027, The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard will come into effect. This will have implications for organisations that voluntarily measure, report, and manage agricultural land-management emissions and carbon removals.
For companies within land-based supply chains, land management activities can represent a significant source of both emissions and carbon removals. The standard helps clarify how these fluxes should be accounted for within GHG Protocol inventories, including how to treat biogenic carbon, land-use change, soil carbon, and CO₂ removals. Understanding the standard is important, as it can inform corporate GHG reporting and disclosures.
In this overview, we highlight the key changes from the previous guidance and outline what these changes mean for companies within land-based supply chains. This is particularly important for those who need to understand how the new standard affects the measurement and disclosure of emissions and removals.
What businesses need to know about the standard
The standard strengthens transparency requirements by requiring separate reporting of land-sector emissions, CO₂ removals, and leakage impacts, rather than aggregating these elements into a single net figure.
The standard is more explicit with regards to traceability and documentation requirements for land-based commodities and mitigation outcomes, including recognised chain-of-custody approaches (e.g., identity preservation, segregation, mass balance, and controlled blending).
The standard introduces more defined approaches to managing the risk of reversal of land-based removals, including review periods and reserve/buffer approaches.
The Land Sector and Removals Standard is highly relevant to our clients, as it provides clearer guidance for measuring and reporting emissions and removals from land-based systems. These updates will support us in delivering robust greenhouse gas measurement, reporting and verification services for clients operating in agriculture, forestry, and other land-based supply chains.
For more information, or to discuss how your organisation can meet the new standards, contact our team.
Photo by Werner Sevenster on Unsplash
