Land Sector and Removals Standard
The Land Sector and Removals Standard is the first GHG Protocol Standard to provide greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting requirements and guidance that equip companies with the methods needed to quantify, report, and track land emissions, CO₂ removals, and other key metrics. This Standard also offers companies accounting requirements and guidance to report technological CO₂ removals (e.g. direct air capture) and CO₂ capture with geologic storage.
Taking effect on January 1, 2027, the LSR Standard was developed through a rigorous, transparent, and inclusive five-year effort involving broad global participation including more than 300 external reviewers.
The Executive Summary document can be accessed here. Read this article for a quick overview of the Standard. The accompanying Guidance document will be published in the second quarter of 2026. For additional resources, please see “Supporting Materials for Users” at the bottom of the page. This will be updated with additional materials throughout the year.
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About the Land Sector and Removals Standard
The Land Sector and Removals Standard explains how companies account for and report the following activities in their greenhouse gas inventories:
- Land management and land use change
- CO₂ removals with storage in land and geologic carbon pools
- Emissions from biogenic products and products derived from technological CO₂ removals across the value chain
The Standard can be used by companies to:
- Inform mitigation strategies by understanding the GHG emissions and removal impacts of land management, land use change, biogenic products and other CO₂ removal activities
- Set targets and track performance by including the above activities in GHG targets
- Report GHG inventories including GHG emissions and CO₂ removals and report progress toward GHG mitigation goals
Land Sector and Removals Stakeholder Needs Survey
GHG Protocol recently fielded a survey asking companies with land sector related emissions or that choose to account for CO₂ removals, as well as data providers and other relevant stakeholders, about their needs related to capacity-building, business decision-making, and data/MRV (monitoring, reporting, verification). That survey is now closed.
GHG Protocol will use the results of the survey to help determine what additional resources to develop to supplement the Land Sector and Removals Standard and forthcoming Guidance. We plan to share a summary of the survey results in the coming weeks.
Forest Carbon Accounting
The Independent Standards Board recognizes differing perspectives that currently exist about forest carbon accounting in the academic and practitioner communities, from both a scientific and a feasibility perspective. To avoid delaying the release of the wider LSR Standard, the GHG Protocol Steering Committee decided that forest carbon accounting would not feature in this version of the LSR Standard.
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.
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.
