GHG Protocol Land Sector & Removals Standard: What It Changes for Corporate Reporting
The first comprehensive framework for accounting agricultural emissions, reporting CO2 removals, and integrating land-use data into corporate GHG inventories. How it aligns with SBTi FLAG, when companies can claim removals, and what it means for value chain strategy.
By Abhishek Das • • 12 min read
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Jan 2027
Effective date — mandatory for reporting companies
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~22%
Share of global GHG emissions from the land sector
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32
Requirements across 20 chapters, 4 parts
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Why This Standard Exists |
The land sector is responsible for roughly 22% of net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions — from agriculture, land-use change, and managed ecosystems. At the same time, the global land sink absorbs approximately 30% of annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Until now, the GHG Protocol’s Corporate Standard and Scope 3 Standard provided no comprehensive framework for companies to account for either side of this equation in their inventories.
The result was a patchwork. Companies with significant agricultural supply chains — food and beverage, retail, consumer goods — lacked standardised guidance on how to account for biogenic CO2 emissions and removals. Companies investing in carbon removal technologies had no protocol-level framework for reporting those removals alongside their conventional emissions. And the growing corporate interest in CO2 removal as a climate strategy existed in an accounting vacuum.
The Land Sector and Removals Standard, Version 1.0, fills that gap. Approved by the GHG Protocol in October 2025 and published on January 30, 2026, it becomes effective on January 1, 2027. It supplements — not replaces — the existing Corporate Standard and Scope 3 Standard, adding 32 new requirements across 20 chapters organised in four parts.
What This Standard Covers — and What It Doesn’t
Covered: Agricultural emissions, land management emissions and removals, biogenic CO2 from land-use activities, technological CO2 removal (DACCS, BECCS, enhanced mineralisation, biochar), and geologic storage of captured CO2.
Not covered in V1.0: Forestry. This is a deliberate scope decision. Future versions may incorporate forestry-related accounting, but the current standard focuses on agriculture and removal technologies.
Applicability: Any company reporting under the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard or Scope 3 Standard that has land sector emissions in its value chain or is investing in CO2 removal activities.
The timing is not coincidental. With SBTi’s FLAG (Forest, Land and Agriculture) guidance already requiring companies whose land-related emissions exceed 20% of total Scope 1+2+3 to set specific land sector targets, the GHG Protocol needed to provide the underlying accounting infrastructure. This standard delivers it.
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What Changes in Corporate Reporting |
The standard introduces a fundamentally new layer of accounting that sits alongside existing Scope 1, 2, and 3 reporting. Companies must now separately identify and report land sector emissions across their entire inventory boundary — not just in Scope 3.
Inventory Boundary Expansion
Land emissions tracked across all three scopes
Companies must now include biogenic CO2 emissions and removals from land management activities within their operational boundaries (Scope 1) as well as across their value chains (Scope 3). Previously, many companies excluded biogenic CO2 entirely or reported it only as a memo item. The standard makes this mandatory and structured.
For Scope 3, the standard specifies that companies must account for land management emissions and removals associated with purchased goods and services (Category 1), upstream transportation (Category 4), and investments (Category 15) where land-use activities are materially relevant.
Separate Land vs Non-Land Accounting
You cannot blend them — separate tracking is required
The standard creates a clear accounting separation between land sector emissions and conventional (non-land) emissions. This separation is critical because land sector emissions behave differently: they are often reversible, subject to natural variability, and tied to biological cycles that do not follow the same patterns as fossil fuel combustion.
This has direct implications for target setting. Under Requirement 27, companies must set separate targets for land sector emissions and non-land emissions. You cannot offset poor performance on fossil fuel reduction by claiming improvements in land management. The two streams remain distinct throughout the inventory, target-setting, and reporting process.
Stock-Change Accounting Approach
Measuring net CO2 flux, not just point-source emissions
For land management removals, the standard prescribes a stock-change approach. Rather than measuring emissions at a single point in time, companies track the net change in carbon stocks across five land carbon pools: above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, dead organic matter, soil organic carbon, and harvested wood products.
This represents a shift in how corporate teams think about emissions data. It requires longitudinal measurement — tracking changes in carbon pools between reporting periods — rather than the annual snapshot approach used for conventional emissions. For companies new to land sector accounting, this introduces significant data collection and methodological requirements.
The practical effect is that corporate GHG inventories become materially more complex from January 2027. Companies that have treated land-use emissions as a peripheral reporting category now need to build them into the core of their inventory architecture.
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When Companies Can Claim Removals |
This is the section most sustainability teams are focused on. The standard establishes clear rules for when a company can report CO2 removals in its inventory — and when it cannot. The rules vary depending on the type of removal, where it occurs in the value chain, and whether the company can demonstrate adequate traceability.
First, the foundational principle: CO2 removal reporting is optional. The standard does not require companies to report removals. But if a company chooses to report removals, it must comply with Requirements 19 through 23, which establish strict conditions around what qualifies, how it is measured, and how it must be monitored over time.
Two Categories of Qualifying Removals
Land Management CO2 Removals
CO2 captured through biological processes — photosynthesis — and stored in land carbon pools. This includes increased soil organic carbon from regenerative agriculture, above-ground and below-ground biomass accumulation, and carbon stored in harvested wood products. These are biological sinks and carry inherent reversal risk from fire, disease, drought, or land-use change.
Removals with Geologic Storage
CO2 captured through mechanical or chemical processes and permanently stored in geological formations. This includes direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), enhanced rock weathering, and biochar with long-term stability. These are technological sinks with generally higher permanence but also higher cost and energy requirements.
The Traceability Test for Scope 3 Removals
For removals occurring in a company’s own operations (Scope 1), the accounting is relatively straightforward: measure the stock change, apply the methodology, report the result. But for Scope 3 removals — which is where most companies will encounter land sector activity — the standard introduces a critical traceability requirement under Requirement 20.
Companies must demonstrate traceability of removal data back to specific land management units (LMUs) or, at minimum, to a defined sourcing region. This means a food company cannot simply claim that its agricultural supply chain generates removals based on industry averages. It must trace those removals to specific farms, plantations, or managed land areas where the carbon stock changes are measured.
The standard also introduces the concept of “right to report” for Scope 3 removals. Multiple companies in the same supply chain may have legitimate claims on the same removal activity. The standard provides guidance on how to allocate removal claims to avoid double counting within corporate inventories — a problem that has plagued Scope 3 reporting more broadly.
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Critical Rule: Removals Cannot Offset Emissions Under Requirement 27, companies must set separate targets for emissions reductions and CO2 removals. Removals cannot be subtracted from emissions to show a lower net total. This is consistent with the standard’s broader philosophy that emission reduction and carbon removal are complementary but distinct climate strategies. A company cannot reduce its reported emissions by increasing its reported removals — they are tracked in parallel, not netted against each other. |
For companies purchasing carbon removal credits through the voluntary market, the standard also addresses this under Chapter 18 (Credited Reductions and Removals). Credits must meet quality criteria including additionality, credible baselines, monitoring, permanence assurance, leakage mitigation, and independent verification. Importantly, credited removals must be reported separately from the company’s inventory removals — they sit in a distinct accounting category under Requirement 30.
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The Permanence Challenge |
Permanence is the central tension in removal accounting. When a company burns fossil fuels, the resulting CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries to millennia. When a company claims a removal, the standard requires that the stored carbon remains sequestered for a comparable duration. The problem is that biological and even some technological storage mechanisms carry inherent reversal risk.
The standard addresses this through Requirement 22, which mandates ongoing monitoring and reversal accounting. If a previously reported removal is reversed — for example, a forest fire destroys biomass that was counted as a carbon stock increase — the company must report that reversal as an emission in the period it occurs. There is no allowance for permanence discounting or risk buffers within the inventory itself.
Permanence Profiles by Removal Type
Soil Organic Carbon
Moderate permanence. Carbon can be released if management practices change (e.g., return to tillage). Requires continuous monitoring. Vulnerable to climate-driven soil degradation.
Above-Ground Biomass
Variable permanence. Subject to reversal from fire, disease, pests, drought, and land-use conversion. Forestry-related biomass is not covered in V1.0, but agricultural biomass (e.g., agroforestry) falls within scope.
Biochar
High permanence when properly characterised. Stable carbon structures can persist for centuries in soil. The standard allows biochar as a removal pathway provided long-term stability can be demonstrated.
DACCS / BECCS / Geologic Storage
Very high permanence. CO2 injected into geological formations is considered effectively permanent on human timescales. This is the gold standard for removal permanence but carries the highest cost per tonne.
This creates a practical hierarchy. Companies that want removal claims with the least reversal risk will gravitate toward geologic storage pathways, but these are currently the most expensive and least available at scale. Companies relying on land management removals will need robust monitoring systems and must be prepared to report reversals transparently — a significant operational commitment.
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SBTi FLAG & Net-Zero Alignment |
The Land Sector and Removals Standard was developed in direct coordination with SBTi’s Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) guidance and the emerging Net Zero Standard V2. The alignment is deliberate and structural — the GHG Protocol provides the accounting framework, while SBTi provides the target-setting methodology that sits on top of it.
The 20% FLAG Threshold
SBTi requires any company whose land-related emissions constitute 20% or more of its total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions to set a specific FLAG target. This affects a wide range of sectors: food and beverage, agriculture, forestry and paper, textiles, and any company with significant agricultural procurement in its supply chain.
The GHG Protocol standard provides the accounting methodology these companies need to measure and report the emissions that trigger the FLAG threshold. Without the Land Sector and Removals Standard, companies had no protocol-level framework to produce the data SBTi requires for FLAG target validation.
Where the Standard Aligns with SBTi V2
Separate land and non-land targets: Both frameworks require that land sector emissions are tracked and targeted separately from conventional emissions. SBTi V2 explicitly references this principle as a core design requirement, and the GHG Protocol standard provides the accounting infrastructure to make it operational.
Removal accounting as a distinct stream: SBTi V2’s treatment of removals — particularly its distinction between avoidance credits and removal credits, and the eventual transition to removals-only for neutralisation — requires companies to have a rigorous method for measuring and reporting removals. The GHG Protocol standard supplies that method.
Permanence hierarchy: SBTi V2 requires that at the point of neutralisation, 41% of residual emissions must be counterbalanced with long-lived removals (geologic storage, enhanced mineralisation, durable biochar). The GHG Protocol standard’s distinction between biological and technological sinks directly maps to this requirement.
1.5°C pathway alignment: The standard notes that 1.5°C pathways require between 100 billion and 1 trillion additional tonnes of CO2 removal over this century. Both the GHG Protocol and SBTi frameworks are designed to create the corporate reporting and target-setting infrastructure needed to mobilise private capital toward that scale of removal activity.
For companies already on the SBTi pathway, the practical implication is clear: the Land Sector and Removals Standard is not an optional add-on. It is the accounting foundation that SBTi FLAG targets and V2 net-zero targets depend on. Companies that delay implementation will find themselves unable to produce the data required for SBTi validation.
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Value Chain Implications |
The standard’s impact extends well beyond the reporting team. By requiring companies to track land sector emissions across their Scope 3 categories, it creates new data requirements throughout the supply chain and introduces new considerations for procurement, sourcing, and supplier engagement strategies.
Procurement & Sourcing Teams
New supplier data requirements and sourcing criteria
Agricultural commodity procurement will increasingly require suppliers to provide land management data — not just volume and price. Companies sourcing palm oil, soy, cocoa, beef, dairy, and other land-intensive commodities will need to collect LMU-level or sourcing region-level data on biogenic emissions and removals. This transforms supplier engagement from a sustainability compliance exercise into a core procurement function.
Carbon Credit & Removal Procurement
Quality criteria for credited removals become more defined
Chapter 18 of the standard establishes quality criteria for credited reductions and removals. For companies procuring carbon removal credits through the voluntary market, this creates a protocol-level benchmark for what constitutes a legitimate removal credit. Credits must demonstrate additionality, credible baselines, monitoring, permanence, leakage mitigation, and independent verification. Companies using Canopy or similar procurement platforms can align their credit selection criteria directly with these requirements.
Reporting & Compliance Teams
Materially more complex inventories from January 2027
Corporate GHG inventories will need new data categories, new methodological documentation, and new assurance processes. The stock-change approach for land management removals requires multi-year data comparison. Reversal monitoring requires ongoing tracking beyond the reporting period. And the separate land vs non-land accounting structure requires systems capable of maintaining distinct emission streams throughout the inventory and reporting process.
The companies that move fastest will build a data advantage. Early adopters of land sector accounting will have cleaner baselines, better supplier relationships, and more credible removal claims when the standard becomes mandatory. Laggards will face a compressed timeline to build the measurement infrastructure that the standard requires.
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What Comes Next |
The standard becomes effective on January 1, 2027. That gives companies less than a year to assess their exposure, build or upgrade their measurement systems, and integrate land sector accounting into their inventory processes. For companies with significant agricultural supply chains, this is not a distant planning horizon — it is an operational deadline.
Key Dates
October 2025
Standard approved by the GHG Protocol after multi-year development and stakeholder consultation.
January 30, 2026
Version 1.0 published. Companies can begin voluntary adoption immediately.
January 1, 2027
Effective date. Companies reporting under GHG Protocol with material land sector exposure are expected to comply.
2027–2028 and Beyond
SBTi V2 (expected late 2026, mandatory January 2028) will build on this accounting framework. Future versions of the GHG Protocol standard may expand to include forestry. CSRD and other regulatory frameworks are expected to reference these standards for land sector disclosures.
Readiness Starts with Measurement
The companies that begin measuring land sector emissions and building removal traceability systems now — before the January 2027 effective date — will have cleaner baselines, stronger SBTi FLAG submissions, and more credible removal portfolios. Waiting until the deadline means compressed timelines, lower data quality, and weaker competitive positioning in an increasingly data-driven carbon credit market.
References
GHG Protocol, Land Sector and Removals Standard, Version 1.0, January 2026. GHG Protocol, Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Revised Edition). GHG Protocol, Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. SBTi, Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance. SBTi, Corporate Net Zero Standard V2 Second Consultation Draft, November 2025. IPCC, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change — Chapter 7: AFOLU.
Ready to Integrate Land Sector Accounting into Your Climate Strategy?
Climate Decode’s Canopy helps organisations calculate residual emissions, curate high-quality carbon removal credits, and build audit-ready portfolios aligned with the GHG Protocol Land Sector & Removals Standard, SBTi FLAG, and SBTi V2 net-zero requirements.
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About the Author Abhishek DasClimate Decode Abhishek works on Climate Decode’s voluntary carbon markets and residual emission procurement strategy, bridging corporate net-zero target setting with emerging carbon credit and EAC frameworks. |