GHG Protocol Releases First Global Standard for Land Sector Carbon Accounting

The GHG Protocol has released its Land Sector and Removals Standard, establishing the first global framework for companies to quantify, report, and track greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 removals from agricultural land use. The standard takes effect from January 2027 and was developed through a five-year process involving over 300 external reviewers, more than 4,000 public comments, and pilot testing by 96 companies.

The new standard fills a major gap in corporate carbon accounting: the land sector, including agriculture, forestry, and other land uses, accounts for approximately 22% of global GHG emissions, yet companies have until now lacked a credible and consistent method to report these emissions and removals. Metrics newly introduced by the standard include land use change emissions associated with deforestation, biogenic emissions from agricultural products, lifecycle emissions and removals from food and fibre products, CO2 capture through natural climate solutions, and carbon storage in long-lived products derived from CO2 removals.

The GHG Protocol was established in 1997 and its standards have been integrated into major global reporting frameworks including IFRS Foundation ISSB standards and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards underlying CSRD. The new land sector standard is significant for India and other emerging market economies where agriculture and land use changes represent a disproportionate share of national GHG inventories. Companies in food, apparel, and bioenergy sectors with significant land-related value chains will be required to follow the standard.

Two complex issues addressed by the GHG Protocol's Independent Standards Board were agricultural leakage — emissions that occur when a company's land actions displace food production elsewhere — and forest carbon accounting. The standard requires companies with high agricultural leakage risk to account for and separately report these impacts, while forest carbon accounting will be addressed in a future update following a forthcoming Request for Information. The WBCSD described land sector emissions as one of the bigger blind spots in corporate carbon accounting until now.

Key figure — January 2027