This FAQ is designed to help stakeholders learn more about the content of the LSR Standard, the development process for the Standard, and who should be using the Standard. To access the full LSR Standard, as well as additional resources related to the Standard, please visit the Land Sector and Removals Standard landing page.
 

Table of Contents

1. Why did GHG Protocol develop a land sector specific standard? 
2. Who should be using the LSR Standard? 
3. What activities are covered in the LSR Standard? 
4. How was the LSR Standard developed?  
5. Why does the LSR Standard exclude forest carbon accounting? 
6. How should companies report forest-related emissions and removals in the interim? 
7. When does the LSR Standard take effect, and what should companies be doing now to prepare? 
8. How does the LSR Standard relate to climate target-setting initiatives and disclosure frameworks? 
9. What does “traceability” refer to, and what approaches are acceptable? 
10. Does the LSR Standard change how biogenic CO₂ emissions are reported? 
11. What types of CO₂ removals are eligible under the LSR Standard, and are companies required to report them? 
12. How does the LSR Standard prevent greenwashing and misleading claims about removals? 
13. How does the LSR Standard relate to the new GHG Protocol-ISO partnership? 
14. How does the LSR Standard relate to other GHG Protocol standards? 
15. When will the LSR Guidance be published? 
16. When is reporting of leakage required for a company? 
17. If my company issues or purchases GHG credits, does the Land Sector and Removals Standard apply to me? 
 

1. Why did GHG Protocol develop a land sector specific standard?

While emissions from agriculture and land use change account for roughly a quarter of global emissions, companies lacked a credible method for how to fully report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and CO₂ removals from land use prior to the release of the Land Sector and Removals (LSR) Standard. The new LSR Standard fills a major gap by providing clear requirements for corporate climate accounting of agricultural impacts and by establishing robust safeguards for companies that choose to account for removals (both natural and technological) or captured CO₂ with geologic storage in their GHG emissions inventories.  The LSR Standard enables companies with land sector activities in their operations or value chain to track progress toward climate targets with greater consistency, confidence and transparency.

2. Who should be using the LSR Standard?

Any company with significant land-sector activities in its operations (i.e., scope 1) or value chain (i.e., scope 3) must apply the LSR Standard to conform with GHG Protocol’s voluntary framework. The LSR Standard defines “significant” as having a sufficiently large influence on a company’s total inventory to be worthy of attention. This can be determined based on its magnitude relative to the total emissions, removals or other metrics in terms of the absolute level, the trend, or the uncertainty (adapted from IPCC (2019) definition for “key category”). The GHG Protocol makes no specific recommendations as to what constitutes a “significant” exclusion threshold. However, some GHG programs (e.g., SBTi FLAG) do specify numerical significance thresholds.  

The standard was designed for companies of any size and at any point in the value chain, including producers, buyers, and sellers of agricultural products. This includes companies that own or control significant areas of land, or that manage significant areas of land to increase carbon stored in biomass or soil; companies that purchase, consume, process, or sell significant amounts of food, fiber, feed, bioenergy, or other agricultural products; and, companies that supply significant amounts of products to agricultural producers.

In addition, companies that seek to report CO₂ removals (from both natural or technological) or to not report CO₂ emissions associated with CO₂ that is captured and stored in geologic reservoirs, must meet the safeguards in the LSR Standard if they opt to include those activities in their GHG inventory. This includes companies that own or control technological CO₂ removal operations; companies that purchase, consume, process, or sell products that store CO₂ that was technologically removed; and, companies that store captured fossil CO₂, captured biogenic CO₂, or CO₂ that was technologically removed in geologic reservoirs.

3. What activities are covered in the LSR Standard?

The LSR Standard covers land emissions and removals from agricultural production and related land use metrics associated with a company’s operations or value chain, including biogenic product CO₂ emissions from use or end-of-life treatment of agricultural products. It also covers CO₂ that is captured and stored in geologic reservoirs (whether from CO₂ removals, biogenic carbon or captured fossil carbon), and the lifecycle GHG emissions associated with the capture, transportation, processing and storage of captured CO₂. This version of the LSR Standard does not apply to companies with operations on forest lands and non-productive lands, or in forest product value chains.

4. How was the LSR Standard developed?

The LSR Standard was developed through a rigorous, transparent, and inclusive five-year process, informed by extensive global consultation with experts from companies, governments, academia, and civil society. This consultation involved more than 300 external reviewers with pilot testing by 96 companies and supporting partners. Through subgroup meetings and workshops involving 138 international experts, the LSR Technical Working Group proposed revisions to the draft Guidance to address more than 4,000 public comments. This proposal was then reviewed, refined and approved by the LSR Advisory Committee.

Consistent with GHG Protocol’s governance, two complex issues were brought to the Independent Standards Board (ISB) for a decision: agricultural leakage ‒ emissions that occur when a company’s actions displace food or feed production to lands beyond their operations or value chain ‒ and forest carbon accounting.  

5. Why does the LSR Standard exclude forest carbon accounting?

The IPCC states that “anthropogenic emissions and removals means that greenhouse gas emissions and removals included in national inventories are a result of human activities” (IPCC 2006, 1.4; 2019). However, distinguishing anthropogenic from non-anthropogenic emissions or removals due to forest management activities or land management on non-forest lands outside of agricultural production is complex. This is because forest lands and non-productive, non-forest lands emit and remove CO₂, and do so both because of and despite human activities.

The GHG Protocol’s accounting approach for separating anthropogenic from natural impacts on all forest lands and non-productive non-forest lands when accounting for land management net biogenic CO₂ emissions and land management CO₂ removals is pending. This is relevant to companies that own or control forest lands; companies that own or control other non-forest lands outside of agricultural production; companies that source forestry products (e.g., timber, paper, pulp, wood pellets, resins, etc.); and/or, companies that include proximate and adjacent non-productive lands in their land management unit–level scope 3 spatial boundary for agricultural products they source.  

The GHG Protocol’s Independent Standards Board fully recognizes the differences of perspective that currently exist in the academic and practitioner communities, from both a scientific and a feasibility perspective. Both science and feasibility are core design principles of GHG Protocol standards, and more time and stakeholders inputs are required to ensure that both are appropriately met. Therefore, to avoid delaying the release of the wider LSR Standard, the GHG Protocol’s Steering Committee decided that forest carbon accounting would not feature in this version of the LSR Standard. Instead, a Request for Information will soon be issued to gather stakeholder input on how forest carbon accounting can best feature in a future update of the LSR Standard, which would be preceded by field testing around the world.

While version 1.0 of this Standard does not apply to forestry, it does provide requirements to account for and report biomass carbon stock changes on productive agricultural lands (e.g., in agroforestry and silvopasture systems), land use change emissions from the conversion of natural forests to plantation forests, and land management production emissions due to activities on forest lands. 

6. How should companies report forest-related emissions and removals in the interim?

Until the release of an updated LSR Standard that includes forest carbon accounting, companies choosing to disclose forest carbon impacts should be transparent about their chosen methodology. Given the different views, and to allow for adequate stakeholder input and field testing, an updated LSR Standard that includes forest carbon accounting may take considerable time.      

7. When does the LSR Standard take effect, and what should companies be doing now to prepare?

The LSR Standard goes into effect on January 1, 2027, allowing companies sufficient lead time to prepare. This means that for companies the LSR Standard applies to, any inventory reports that are published after this date would need to comply with the LSR Standard to conform with the GHG Protocol (e.g. a company in 2027 disclosing their GHG inventory for a 2025 reporting year would have to comply with the LSR Standard). The Independent Standards Board approved this date following benchmarking against best practices and the approaches taken by peer programs. Programs that build on GHG Protocol standards – such as corporate climate disclosure or target-setting initiatives – determine relevant effective dates specific to their program.

The need for future updates and revision will be assessed after the GHG Protocol’s Independent Standards Board reviews the feedback received from the forest carbon accounting request for information.  The assessment of that revision will also consider the need to incorporate resolutions from broader suite of corporate standard update processes, and the need to update requirements left as interim (i.e., Requirement 7 and Requirement 8). According to the GHG Protocol’s Standard Development and Revision Procedure the need to revise the standard must be considered within a maximum of five years of the date of publication (i.e., 2030).

8. How does the LSR Standard relate to climate target-setting initiatives and disclosure frameworks?

Target-setting initiatives and disclosure frameworks will develop their own rules around compliance with the LSR Standard. The GHG Protocol’s LSR Standard and climate target-setting initiatives serve complementary roles. The LSR Standard provides a standardized framework for accounting land-based greenhouse gas emissions and removals, strengthening the foundation for science-based target setting. The GHG Protocol works with standard-setters like the SBTi to support alignment across climate standards so that companies can rely on stable, long-term accounting foundations that reduce complexity and support credible climate action.  

9. What does “traceability” refer to, and what approaches are acceptable?

Traceability refers to tracking information related to goods and services purchased or sold by a company, both upstream and downstream of its operations. For example, this could refer to a food processing company collecting information on the emission associated with specific farms producing the agricultural products they source and tracking those products as they move through their supply chain. Companies can have different levels of traceability to different volumes of product they source. For example, a company could have traceability to a country for a volume of corn they source and traceability to a set of farms for another volume of corn they source, and define different levels of spatial boundaries to account for their land emissions related to corn for a given year.  

The LSR Standard requires physical traceability via chain of custody (CoC) models, which is a way of representing the transfer of goods through a supply chain, if companies want to use emissions factors specific to a farm or if they want to include removals in their inventory. Identity preservation, segregation, controlled blending and some types of mass balance are the chain of custody models that can be used to demonstrate physical traceability. Other traceability systems may be explored in the Actions and Market Instruments workstream.  

Physical traceability is recommended to establish a jurisdiction spatial boundary. Physical traceability is required to establish a sourcing region, land management unit or harvested area spatial boundaries, and to account for emissions, removals and other metrics specific to those boundaries in the physical GHG inventory.

Impact traceability refers to information related to the impact of projects, and can optionally be reported separate from the physical GHG inventory, subject to Actions and Market Instruments decisions and guidelines.  

10. Does the LSR Standard change how biogenic CO₂ emissions are reported?

The Corporate Standard (2004) requires companies to separately report biogenic emissions. Companies to which the LSR Standard is applicable shall only report biogenic emissions separately if they report all lifecycle GHG emissions and leakage. For example, gross biogenic CO₂ emissions from biofuel combustion shall be reported separately from the physical GHG inventory if lifecycle GHG emissions and leakage are accounted for and reported, which includes associated land emissions from carbon stock losses and leakage. If lifecycle GHG emissions or leakage are not reported, gross biogenic product CO₂ emissions from biofuel combustion shall be reported in the physical GHG inventory.

11. What types of CO₂ removals are eligible under the LSR Standard, and are companies required to report them?

The two overarching categories of removals that are eligible under this version of the Standard are (a) agricultural management practices that store carbon on the land and new technologies that capture atmospheric CO₂ or (b) biogenic carbon. The LSR Standard is based on a carbon stock change accounting approach that estimates the net flux of carbon to or from the atmosphere during a time period based on the net change in carbon stock at the beginning and end of that period.  

Reporting removals is optional under the LSR Standard. If all removals requirements are met, companies can report CO₂ removals in the physical GHG inventory.  

12. How does the LSR Standard prevent greenwashing and misleading claims about removals?

The LSR Standard has requirements to ensure robust reporting, including requirements related to complete lifecycle emissions accounting, data quality, traceability to where the CO₂ was removed and remains stored, ongoing monitoring of carbon storage, and avoiding double counting in scope 3.  

13. How does the LSR Standard relate to the new GHG Protocol-ISO partnership?

The Land Sector and Removals Standard and forthcoming Guidance is currently outside the scope of the GHG Protocol and ISO partnership but may be brought into this partnership in the future. For more information about GHG Protocol’s partnership with ISO, please review this resource. 

14. How does the LSR Standard relate to other GHG Protocol standards?

The LSR Standard builds on the Corporate Standard (2004) and Scope 3 Standard. Reporting under the LSR Standard is required for all companies with significant land sector activities and/or that choose to include CO₂ removals or CO₂ capture with geologic storage in their GHG inventory.  

15. When will the LSR Guidance be published?

The accompanying Land Sector and Removals Guidance will be published in the second quarter of 2026 (April-June). The LSR Guidance V1.0 will incorporate the feedback received during the public consultation of the 2022 draft. It will include complementary guidance on the LSR Standard requirements including examples and case studies, as well as calculation guidance including equations.  

Additional resources will follow, such as a reporting template that will support companies developing their inventories.

If you are not already subscribed to receive email updates from GHG Protocol, we encourage you to subscribe via this form to receive updates on the Land Sector and Removals workstream.

16. When is reporting of leakage required for a company? 

Companies are required to report leakage if they implement activities that result in reporting  reduced GHG emissions, increased removals, or reduced emissions relative to use of an alternative non-biogenic product, but also have a high risk for land carbon leakage by reducing or diverting food or feed production on agricultural land.

Activities with high risk for land carbon leakage are:  

• use of food or other agricultural products for non-food, non-feed use;  
• significant reduction in food production over the long-term, resulting from a change in land management or land use for which land management CO₂ removals are attributed; and,  
• significant reduction in crop yields per hectare over the long-term, resulting from a change in cropland management practices.  

The LSR Standard defines “significant” as having a sufficiently large influence to be worthy of attention. This can be determined based on its magnitude relative to the total in terms of the absolute level, the trend, or the uncertainty.

17. If my company issues or purchases GHG credits, does the Land Sector and Removals Standard apply to me? 

The LSR Standard and Guidance applies to companies with significant land sector activities in their operations or value chain, or companies that choose to account for and report CO₂ removals or CO₂ capture with geologic storage in the current year or previous years.

The primary focus of the LSR Standard is annual, entity-level GHG inventory accounting. This Standard provides requirements and recommendations on how to account for land emissions, removals, and other metrics from products produced by the reporting company as part of their scope 1 inventory, or products purchased or sold by the reporting company as part of their scope 3 inventory.

This Standard does not provide requirements or guidance on project accounting, GHG credit certification, or GHG credit verification (see the GHG Protocol’s Project Protocol for details), but does include some requirements on evaluating the impacts of actions to inform decision-making, on disclosing information regarding issued or purchased credits, and on avoiding double counting progress with GHG credits.

GHG Protocol’s Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) workstream is developing a multi-statement reporting structure which will enable companies to completely and transparently report on impacts of actions and market instruments in a credible manner within a corporate GHG report.