The Voluntary Carbon Market is one way in which carbon pricing is implemented in corporate operations. Its unit of account is the carbon credit, a transferable certificate that proves that a project owner has achieved a surplus emission reduction or carbon removal equivalent to 1 ton of carbon dioxide, but has transferred the right to make green claims to the credit buyer in exchange for financial compensation. The actors (whether they are standard owners, project developers, certifiers, green investors, or credit buyer) all enter the market voluntarily, so their activities go beyond regulations and national commitments, i.e., they produce additional results in climate action.
The market is undergoing significant changes, with interrelated megatrends changing the way trade is conducted (forward offtake agreements), joint decarbonization by participants in corporate value chains (insetting) as a new strategic approach, and the transformation of standards methodologically legitimizes offsetting in order to generate demand. Let us now turn to the main focus of climate mitigation and the resulting fundamental change in project development directions: technological carbon removal and nature-based carbon farming. I have already discussed the former in my latest article, so let us now turn to carbon farming.
Ecology has become a question of power
Dune is a deep ecological story: it is about the functioning of a planet, its water management, and strategies for its long-term transformation. Arakis is not inherently a "bad planet," but rather a system in a state of equilibrium. The Fremen's goal is not to change it immediately, but to understand the water cycle, intervene in small steps, and implement an ecological plan that spans generations. In the film, ecology ultimately becomes a question of power: whoever controls spice as a resource also gains political influence.
In the world of carbon farming, the carbon sequestration capacity of soil becomes an asset, i.e., a measurable, auditable factor that can be converted into an increasingly valuable financial instrument (carbon credit). This raises the question: who controls the ecological potential of the soil, and what time frame are they thinking of? For me, the parallel with Dune is strong because carbon farming is not just an agricultural technique, but also a civilizational decision about whether we think in terms of short-term extraction or long-term ecological stabilization. I consider it particularly important that the EU has placed carbon farming at the forefront with its latest Voluntary Carbon Market regulation (CRCF), setting an example for others to follow: it has adopted a unique set of transparency rules for carbon market certification systems, with an implementing regulation that already contains complex quality requirements and regulates the work of certification bodies. This is considered as a huge opportunity for the carbon market, as the essence of the regulation is that the EU not only legitimizes but also directly encourages carbon offsetting with carbon credits aligning the regulation.
The new GHG standard appears as a framework
Below is a high-level summary of the carbon sequestration and land-based removal techniques recognized and considered by the newly published GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard 1.0, which will be applicable from January 1, 2027. According to the standard, carbon removal is the transfer of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to non-atmospheric storage. It should be noted that the standard itself does not contain a descriptive list of specific agricultural or industrial carbon removal practices, but it does recognize categories of land sector emissions and removals that companies can include in their GHG inventories. These categories define the boundary conditions that carbon farming activities must meet to be considered under the standard:
- Carbon removal from improved land management: According to the standard for the land sector and removals, carbon removal from land management refers to the net increase in carbon stocks on agricultural land resulting from management practices that sequester carbon in biomass or soil. This category therefore covers the net increase in carbon stored in land areas resulting from agricultural land management activities that permanently remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they emit.
- Removals from land use change. Emissions reductions from land use change occur when land use is converted from one form of use to another. Although this is primarily an emissions category, the standard also considers net carbon stock changes resulting from such conversions. Removals from land-use occur when a change in land use leads to a net increase in carbon stored in soil and biomass. In the context of carbon farming, for example, this could recognize activities such as converting annual cropland to perennial systems or agroforestry, where land conversion results in emission reductions or increased carbon storage.
- Carbon leakage on land. The standard requires companies to report separately on land-based carbon leakage, i.e., GHG emissions that occur outside the company's operational or value chain areas when their activities lead to land use change elsewhere. A typical example of this is when agricultural activities are displaced by industrial activities, such as the numerous factory investments in areas with high agricultural values. Although this is not a technique, the standard nevertheless requires the accounting of carbon leakage on land in order to ensure net climate benefits.
- Carbon accounting for biogenic products. Long-life biogenic products (e.g., wood or durable bio-based construction materials, such as lightweight concrete) also act as carbon sinks, which means that they store carbon dioxide from biological sources (plants or other biomass) during their use phase. This includes carbon dioxide stored in harvested biomass used in durable products, such as cover crop cultivation, which increases the biomass harvested and used in long-lasting products. In this way, the standard recognizes that carbon dioxide removed by plants can be stored in physical products beyond the soil and vegetation or geological storage.
- Technological carbon removal with geological storage. The standard allows companies to account for carbon removals through geological storage. These removals only qualify as net carbon removals if the carbon dioxide is transferred from the atmosphere to geological storage sites and emissions, land use and terrestrial carbon leakage throughout the entire life cycle are considered. Agricultural bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage (Bio-CCS) or direct air capture and storage can be integrated into corporate carbon inventories as removals under strict accounting conditions. Although not exclusively related to agricultural activities, the standard explicitly allows companies to report technological carbon dioxide capture (DACCS) combined with geological storage, or bioenergy carbon dioxide capture and storage (BECCS), as removals. In the carbon farming portfolio, this includes hybrid approaches that combine the growth of terrestrial biomass with technological carbon capture and geological storage.
- Restoration of peatlands and wetlands. This includes restoring natural hydrology in degraded peatlands, preventing peat oxidation, and restoring wetlands that were previously drained due to intensive agriculture to their original state in order to halt soil carbon mineralization. These projects are generally treated as land use changes, resulting in the areas being removed from intensive agricultural use and reclassified. They require full accounting of greenhouse gases, including methane fluxes and stability assessments, but they also contribute significantly to biodiversity enhancement and desertification control.
- Land use conversion. The aim of these innovative, typically crop production activities is to measurably increase the organic carbon stocks in the soil over time by converting land use, thereby removing carbon without taking the land out of agricultural use. A good example is the use of compost or organic soil amendments to increase soil carbon stocks, and since the net increase in soil carbon stocks remains after taking into account total life cycle emissions, it can be accounted for as a land use change. Another example is cover cropping, which involves planting non-crop plants to maintain continuous soil cover and living roots, either perennial or only during the period between harvest and sowing. This not only significantly increases the carbon content of the soil, but also protects against drying out, thus improving average yields.
- Transformation of grassland management and grazing. This leads mainly to animal breeding, but improved grassland management belongs here as a borderline area, which is a set of good practices aimed at improving root biomass and the carbon storage capacity of the soil without changing land use. In Hungarian practice, abandoning regular deep plowing in arable farming entails reclassification of the land after five years, which is currently still a hindering factor in the case of high-value plots. Another typical project type in this category is rotational (adaptive) grazing, which involves modifying grazing density and timing to improve soil carbon accumulation. In this case, the total greenhouse gas balance from livestock farming (including methane emissions and nitrous oxide) must also be considered.
- Forest-based carbon removals. After crop production and livestock farming, forestry cannot be left out of the equation. Afforestation refers to the planting of forests in areas where there were previously no forests, while reforestation refers to the restoration of forest cover in areas that were previously forested. Both are accounted for as carbon removal because of land use change and classification, reflecting the annual increase in biomass and soil carbon stocks relative to the baseline. Agroforestry also falls into this category, which involves planting trees, groups of trees, or small groves on agricultural plots or pastures to retain water and combat erosion. A special case of this is the creation of silvopasture, which is an innovative combination of afforestation and grazing systems. These two latter types of projects are accounted for in different ways as land use change removals or land use change removals, depending on whether the land classification changes (according to current domestic practice, it typically changes, which does not help such projects).
- Definition of emission factors. Every land-related emission factor must be spatially defined. You cannot use them without being able to set the traceability levels for Land Management Unit, which is the subject land of the project activity, sourcing region, jurisdiction, or global scale. You must define what spatial boundary it represents and why it is justified for this GHG inventory. Using global averages is no longer considered neutral: it’s just considered as last-resort assumption, which is not new, but mandatory boundary info is new.
- Full GHG footprint calculation required. For all methodologies, the standard stipulates the following general rule: the total change in relevant carbon stocks must be accounted for across all land carbon pools, the baseline must be determined reliably, comprehensive greenhouse gas accounting (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O), and leakage of results must be continuously assessed to ensure that only permanent positive changes are accounted for. It means, biomass-only, CO₂-only emission factors are insufficient. The above must be presented in a transparent manner in the GHG inventory, in accordance with reporting requirements and within predefined limits.
- Allocation rules: Allocation is no longer a modelling choice; it has become a consistency requirement. The same allocation method must be applied across land emissions, land removals and other land metrics. If your emission factor doesn’t explicitly state its allocation logic, you can’t prove consistency.
- Biogenic CO₂ emission factors are required to use. The weird standpoint that “biogenic is equal to zero” is not compliant carbon accounting anymore. If the biogenic emission factor isn’t there, the emissions don’t disappear, they’re just simply missing from the calculation. Therefore, companies must use explicit emission factors for biogenic CO₂ at oxidation, plus CH₄ and N₂O where relevant.
- Removals emission factors must meet measurement-grade evidence thresholds. In practice it means removals emission factors always have a validity window, not infinite life. Timeless emission factors are no longer defensible. The GHG protocol defines exact requirements for accounting of removals and therefore interacts with the Voluntary Carbon Market. If removals are reported, carbon stock changes must be empirically supported, underlying data must be periodically re-measured or recalibrated (at least every 5 years), and representativeness across variability must be demonstrated.
What are carbon farming techniques in practice?
We have now reached the most interesting part of the article, which covers agricultural technology, land management, and land use practices that are feasible in practice and fit into the above standard categories. There are many such practices, and several of them seem particularly relevant in our country:
How to develop carbon farming projects?
The standard does not in itself validate specific good carbon farming practices, but it provides a rigorous accounting framework how agricultural practices can be reported and even carbon credits can be created, if they demonstrably increase net carbon stocks or reduce emissions compared to the baseline. Here are the hard requirements for calculating the result of Land Use Change projects in practice:
I would be very surprised if the specific, legally recognized carbon farming methodologies suitable for legitimate carbon credit issuance promised by the EU for spring were not based on the new GHG standard. The EU's CRCF regulation is expected to make these carbon credits, following a conversion, eligible for trading on the already huge emissions trading compliance market (EU ETS), which is set to experience further explosive growth in both volume and price following the adoption of the “Fit for 90” strategy. As free allowances will be phased out on the emissions trading market by 2035 and the ETS2 regulation will extend the offsetting obligation to new sectors (buildings, transport), there could be a significant capital flow towards farmers and project developers implementing carbon farming in the next 10-20 years. So here we have the new "spice," which is the sustainable increase in the carbon content of the land. We just need to bow down to realize our ecological plans with the diligence and humility of the Fremen. With this, Europe is sending a serious signal to the world and at the same time charting the course for the future for everyone!