The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol has released the Land Sector and Removals (LSR) Standard, introducing its first global framework for companies to account for greenhouse gas emissions and CO₂ removals from agricultural land use and emerging technologies such as direct air capture and geological carbon storage.
Agriculture and land-use change contribute to nearly a quarter of global emissions; however, until now, companies lacked a credible and consistent approach to report emissions and removals from this sector. The new LSR Standard addresses this gap by providing clear guidance for corporate climate accounting and establishing strong safeguards for reporting both natural and technological CO₂ removals.
The Standard will come into effect on January 1, 2027, giving organizations time to prepare. It has been developed over a five-year period through extensive global consultation, involving more than 300 external reviewers, 96 pilot companies, and 138 international experts, with over 4,000 public comments incorporated into the final version.
As achieving climate goals requires both emission reductions and carbon removals, the LSR Standard ensures that any reported removals meet high-quality criteria. It emphasizes improved data accuracy, full lifecycle accounting, and transparency in storage, enabling companies to track their climate progress more reliably.
Companies with significant land-sector activities will be required to follow this Standard as part of the GHG Protocol framework. It is applicable to organizations of all sizes across the value chain, including producers, buyers, and sellers of agricultural products. The Standard also introduces traceability requirements for Scope 3 emissions, helping companies engage suppliers, prevent double counting, and avoid greenwashing.
Complex topics such as agricultural leakage and forest carbon accounting were reviewed by the Independent Standards Board. Companies with high leakage risks must account for and report these impacts separately. Forest carbon accounting, due to differing scientific and practical perspectives, has been excluded from this version and will be addressed in a future update after further consultation and testing.
While the LSR Standard defines accounting and reporting requirements, additional program-specific requirements (such as target-setting initiatives) may be applied separately.
Supporting guidance will be released later this year, and together with the Standard, will enhance the credibility, consistency, and transparency of corporate climate reporting by ensuring proper accounting of emissions and removals in the land sector.
