GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard: What CDR Buyers Need to Know

Date: February 12, 2026

Author: Bjorn De Groote, Director of Carbon Solutions

After five years of development, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol has released the Land Sector and Removals Standard (LSR Standard), covering accounting methods for land-sector emissions and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). 

This blog examines the LSR Standard's guidance on carbon credits—an area where the GHG Protocol offers some of its clearest direction to date. 

Here are the three key takeaways for sustainability teams: 

1. Stricter quality and disclosure requirements: The LSR Standard specifies what makes a high-quality carbon credit and how companies must report associated climate claims. Required disclosures include credit durability risks, the registry and methodology used, and safeguards against double counting. 

2. Alignment with regulatory frameworks: Carbon credit reporting is converging with mainstream climate disclosure standards. The LSR Standard aligns with frameworks like CSRD and ISSB/IFRS S2, creating more consistency in how companies report and substantiate their carbon credit use across standards. 

3. Emphasis on permanence and credit type: New disclosure requirements around non-permanence risk and carbon credit use will influence how sustainability teams evaluate different credits. This shift signals the growing importance of durable CDR in credible net-zero and residual emissions neutralization strategies. 

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Note: The GHG Protocol LSR Standard will go into effect January 1, 2027, giving companies approximately one year to prepare for the new CDR disclosures. 

Don’t know where to start? CO280’s team of CDR experts can help you identify your reporting requirements and build an actionable, credible, and transparent disclosure plan that aligns with voluntary and regulatory frameworks. Contact us for a free consultation. 

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The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard: Carbon Credit Guidance Explained 

The GHG Protocol introduces stronger integrity and disclosure expectations for carbon credits 

The LSR Standard now requires the following for carbon credit use and reporting: 

Satisfaction of stringent quality criteria 

The new LSR Standard requires companies using carbon credits to ensure those credits meet clearly defined, stringent quality criteria. The GHG Protocol emphasizes that carbon credits used toward compensation or contribution targets need robust program rules, credible quantification, and strong safeguards. 

Defining compensation and contribution targets for carbon credits 

Compensation refers to using credits—typically CDR credits—toward neutralization claims to address residual emissions that remain on the path to net zero. Many standards increasingly link compensation to a like-for-like principle, where removals should have an equivalent climate impact and storage duration as the emissions being addressed. 

Contribution refers to supporting mitigation or removals beyond a company’s value chain, without implying a one-to-one equivalence with its own emissions. Contribution claims are often used to demonstrate broader climate leadership and market-building support. 

For sustainability teams, this means a greater focus on measurable and verifiable attributes, such as: 

• Additionality: The mitigation outcome would not have occurred without carbon finance. 

• Credible baselines and quantification: Transparent, science-based methodologies to estimate reductions or removals. 

• Independent validation and verification: Reviewed by accredited, independent third-party organizations that audit carbon projects. 

• Avoidance of double counting: Clear credit ownership, tracking, and retirements so that the same credits are not counted twice against different mitigation outcomes or entities. 

• Permanence: Durable storage of removals, with appropriate risk mitigation mechanisms such as advanced monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) and buffer pools when appropriate. 

• Leakage safeguards: Prevention of carbon projects inadvertently increasing GHG emissions outside project boundaries. 

• Strong governance and safeguards: Government oversight, carbon registry infrastructure, and social and environmental protections. 

Experienced carbon credit buyers will already be familiar with these principles, but the GHG Protocol is now formalizing them as quality requirements for credits applied toward corporate climate targets. As climate disclosures continue to evolve, sustainability teams should expect to meet these criteria as part of a broader quality assurance mandate. 

Transparent and consistent disclosures 

Beyond stricter credit quality requirements, the LSR Standard calls for transparent and consistent disclosure of carbon credits used to meet corporate targets. Companies will be expected to publicly disclose exactly how carbon credits are used—including whether they are applied to compensation versus broader contribution targets—as well as the following attributes [1]: 

• Whether the credit represents emissions reduction or CDR

• The type of emissions reduction or CDR activity and the protocol used (e.g., BECCS with Puro Geologically Stored Carbon or BECCS with Isometric Biogenic Carbon Capture and Storage protocol)

• How credit outcomes are quantified and verified 

• The credit’s country of origin, vintage (year), and registry tracking ID 

• Non-permanence risks for removals and mitigation measures  

• Any associated safeguards and co-benefits, when applicable 

Over time, these disclosure expectations are likely to make carbon credit use more comparable across companies and bolster credibility under growing stakeholder and regulatory scrutiny. 

Formalization in corporate climate reporting 

Where carbon credit reporting has previously been more informal or optional, the LSR Standard now calls for standardized, audit-ready credit reporting where credits are clearly distinguished from emissions inventories and supported by verifiable documentation. 

The table below provides an illustrative example of how carbon credit information may be structured in GHG reporting based on the disclosure categories outlined by the LSR Standard—keeping in mind that the final reporting template has not yet been released. 

Table 1: Illustrative example of carbon credits in GHG reporting, according to the LSR Standard 

	CDR Offtake 1	CDR Offtake 2
Project Developer	CO280	CO280
Project Name	Pulp Mill CDR USA	Pulp Mill CDR Canada
#credits	5000	5000
Durability	>1,000y	>1,000y
Credit type	Removal	Removal
Used for	Contribution	Compensation
Project Type	BECCS	BECCS
Registry ID	123456	123457
Registry	Puro	Isometric
Protocol	Geologically Stored Carbon	Biogenic Carbon Capture and Storage
Location	[State], United States	[Province], Canada
Independent 3rd-party project verification	Y	Y

The GHG Protocol aligns voluntary disclosures with regulatory reporting

Convergence with key climate disclosure frameworks 

As climate disclosures face greater scrutiny, carbon credit reporting is becoming more standardized. The LSR Standard is broadly consistent with emerging frameworks such as ISSB/IFRS 2, the EU’s ESRS under the CSRD, and California’s Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act, creating a shared foundation for how companies disclose and substantiate carbon credit use. This growing convergence across voluntary and regulatory frameworks is likely to strengthen the overall credibility of carbon credit reporting in corporate climate disclosures. 

Corporate climate disclosures explained 

ISSB/ IFRS S2: The IFRS Foundation sets the accounting standards used by most capital markets worldwide. Through its International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), it has issued IFRS S2, a global climate disclosure standard that requires companies with net-zero targets to explain how carbon credits are used and to disclose information needed to assess their credibility and permanence. Many countries are adopting or aligning with IFRS S2, extending these expectations to large companies globally. 

EU CSRD/ ESRS: The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires large EU companies — and non-EU companies with significant EU operations — to report sustainability information under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). ESRS requires transparent disclosure of any use of carbon credits in climate targets or claims. While developed independently, ESRS has been designed to align closely with ISSB standards to support interoperability and reduce duplication. 

California Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act (AB 1305): California’s AB 1305 requires any company doing business in California that uses, markets, or relies on voluntary carbon credits — or makes claims such as “carbon neutral” or “net zero” — to publicly disclose detailed information about those credits. 

Across these frameworks, there is already substantial overlap in how companies are expected to disclose the use of carbon credits. Table 2 compares these requirements. 

Table 2: The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard compared to voluntary and regulatory frameworks [2] 

	GHG Protocol (LSR Standard)	IFRS	ESRS	AB 1305
Number of GHG credits used	Required		Required
Claims based on credits	Required	Required	Required
Crediting program	Required	Required
Credit type	Required	Required	Required	Required
Protocol	Required			Required
Origin	Required			Required
Durability (risks)	Required
Unique registry ID	Required			Required
Independent verification		Required		Required

As these frameworks continue to evolve, further convergence is expected. The GHG Protocol plays a central role as a common accounting foundation, and companies that align their carbon credit reporting with the LSR Standard will be well positioned to meet similar disclosure expectations across regulatory and investor-facing frameworks.  

The GHG Protocol and implications for durable CDR procurement 

The LSR Standard introduces clearer disclosure guidance around credit type, requiring companies to distinguish between emissions reduction and CDR credits, and to disclose non-permanence risks for removals. This comes as target-setting and claims frameworks increasingly debate what types of mitigation are appropriate for compensating residual emissions. 

Initiatives such as SBTi and the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting link neutralization of residual emissions to the use of durable CDR. A similar emphasis on removals and durability is also evident in policy discussions around the evolution of the UK and EU emissions trading systems.  

The GHG Protocol reinforces this logic by recommending that target-setting programs apply a like-for-like principle, where CDR used for neutralization has an equivalent climate impact and storage duration to the emissions being addressed. 

Clearer disclosure requirements and increasing clarity around neutralization could accelerate a shift toward durable CDR as companies align credit use more closely with their emissions profiles. 

CO280: Closing the durable CDR supply gap 

As disclosure expectations rise, carbon credit buyers are paying closer attention to the availability of high-integrity CDR, particularly those with durable storage. 

Yet durable CDR supply remains limited and can take years to build. Recent analysis from Carbon Direct [3] shows a significant risk that available CDR supply in 2030 will be insufficient to meet current corporate climate targets.  

CO280 is working to close that gap by developing the world’s largest project network of high-quality, permanent, and affordable CDR. Across the U.S. and Canada, CO280 has over 40 projects scoped for development with a total projected CDR capacity of 30+ million tonnes per year. 

Long-term offtakes are required to build CDR supply. Forward offtakes de-risk project development, provide long-term revenue certainty, and as a result, unlock access to the capital required to build CDR projects. These agreements play a critical role in enabling projects to reach commercial scale. 

To learn more about CO280 forward offtakes, contact us for a CDR consultation. 

Looking ahead: How to prepare for the GHG Protocol’s Land Sector and Removals Standard

While the LSR Standard offers new clarity on how carbon credits should be disclosed in corporate reporting, several questions remain, including: 

• How should a company’s use of carbon credits be reflected in the emissions accounting of its suppliers or customers, especially as SBTi explores in-value chain cooperation? 

• How will carbon credit quality criteria be applied in practice? 

• How can compensation and contribution approaches to credit use be applied consistently across different frameworks? 

Addressing these questions will be essential as climate reporting continues to mature, and companies seek to use carbon credits in ways that are credible, consistent, and defensible.  

At the same time, these questions are no reason to delay preparation. With the LSR Standard going into effect on January 1, 2027, the time to start building an audit-ready carbon credit inventory is now.  

Companies have approximately a year-long window to begin aligning their credit evaluation, procurement, and reporting with the GHG Protocol’s updated requirements. Early preparation will be critical to ensuring credible carbon credit use for not only the GHG Protocol’s LSR Standard, but also the broader voluntary and regulatory framework landscape.  

Ready to get started? Contact us for a custom CDR consultation to identify your reporting requirements and build an actionable, credible, and transparent disclosure plan. 

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1 Certain disclosure requirements are currently articulated at a high level. Further detail is expected once the GHG Protocol releases its formal reporting template.

2 This table only includes explicit requirements. ESRS and IFRS require quality criteria to determine the credibility of credits, but do not explicitly define these quality criteria. Note that IFRS requirements are for planned credit use towards targets only.

3 Carbon Direct, 2026 State of the Voluntary Carbon Market: https://www.carbon-direct.com/voluntary-carbon-market/2026