Author : Marguerite Fauroux 

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes are not limited to emissions from energy and industrial systems. A significant share of GHGs also comes from agricultural systems, deforestation and certain land-management practices. Yet, until now, the landscape of corporate GHG accounting did not offer a broadly accepted framework for measuring these impacts. 

This gap is precisely what the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard (LSR), published on 30 January 2026, is designed to fill. It is the first global standard dedicated specifically to these issues.

The role of land systems in the carbon cycle 

The land sector — defined as all human activities related to agriculture, land use and practices that change carbon stocks — accounts for around 22% of net anthropogenic GHG emissions worldwide. 

To understand why the new standard matters, it is useful to revisit a few fundamental concepts. 

• Carbon flows, sources, sinks and storage 

At the scale of the climate system, the analysis cannot be limited to emissions alone: it must integrate all carbon flows and the evolution of carbon stocks. 

Land-related activities can act as sources of greenhouse gases, releasing carbon and other GHGs into the atmosphere—for example when forests are converted to agricultural land. 

They can also act as sinks, removing carbon from the atmosphere, notably through the accumulation of soil organic carbon or the growth of biomass. 

These dynamics translate into emission and removal flows, as well as changes in stocks. 

• Gross and net emissions 

Gross emissions correspond to all GHG flows released into the atmosphere. 
Net emissions result from the difference between these emissions and carbon removals associated with natural sinks or technological sequestration solutions. 

A given system can therefore show high gross emissions while having a lower—or even negative—net balance if sequestration flows exceed emissions. 

Why these concepts are becoming central for companies 

As companies extend their climate commitments to their entire value chains, the ability to robustly characterise carbon flows and stocks in land systems becomes critical. 

Without harmonised methodological frameworks, these flows may be underestimated, poorly attributed or accounted for inconsistently across companies. This undermines data comparability, the credibility of announced trajectories and the steering of reduction strategies based on the main levers of impact. 

What the Land Sector and Removals Standard covers 

The LSR Standard provides companies with a clear method to quantify, report and track their GHG emissions and removals linked to land-based activities and certain carbon removal technologies. 

The standard covers: 

• Emissions from land use, including the conversion of natural land to agricultural land. 

• Net emissions from land management, such as those linked to livestock, fertiliser use or soil degradation. 

• Biogenic emissions related to the use or end-of-life treatment of agricultural products. 

• Carbon removals, both natural (storage in soils or biomass) and technological (e.g. direct air capture with geological storage). 

It is worth noting that version 1.0 does not yet cover GHG accounting for forests or non-productive lands, an area considered too complex for this first edition. 

A few key concepts 

• Carbon leakage 

The standard introduces the notion of land carbon leakage: emissions resulting from the displacement of activities—for example, deforestation occurring elsewhere when a company moves or restructures its production. These effects must now be identified and reported to avoid artificially understating an organisation’s footprint. 

• Integration of carbon removals 

This is the first standard to provide explicit requirements and safeguards for including carbon removals—both natural and technological—in corporate inventories, with strict rules to ensure data quality and transparency. 

• Traceability and data 

Under the standard, companies may rely on different levels of data—from national average emission factors to highly granular, plot-level data—depending on their ability to trace their supply chains. 

In practice: who is affected, when, and how to prepare? 

The standard is aimed at: 

• Any company with land-related activities in its operations or value chain (farmers, processors, distributors, etc.). 

• Companies that wish to include CO₂ removals in their inventories. 

The standard is designed to be used regardless of company size or position in the value chain. 

When does it come into effect? 

The standard comes into effect on 1 January 2027.  

Companies wishing to remain aligned with the GHG Protocol’s voluntary framework will need to integrate it into their GHG inventories from that date if they have land-sector activities or carbon removals to measure. 

How it links with other GHG Protocol standards 

This new standard does not replace existing ones. It builds on the Corporate Standard and the Scope 3 Standard to form a coherent set of GHG accounting rules: 

• The Corporate Standard remains the foundation for corporate GHG inventories. 

• The Scope 3 Standard covers indirect emissions across value chains. 

• The Land Sector and Removals Standard now completes this framework for land-use impacts and carbon removals. 

A major step forward, but a work in progress 

With the publication of the Land Sector and Removals Standard, the GHG Protocol addresses a major methodological gap by providing companies with a unified and rigorous way to account for impacts that were previously approximate or partially excluded. This is a significant step forward for both transparency and the credibility of corporate climate commitments. 

However, as with any standard in its early implementation phase, several challenges remain: practical integration into reporting systems, availability and quality of traceability data, and future extensions to cover complex categories such as forest-related emissions. 

At Earth Action, we support companies in understanding these emerging frameworks, assessing their operational implications and translating them into robust, actionable decarbonisation pathways. In a context of proliferating methodological requirements, our role is to help turn standards like the LSR into concrete decision-making tools and drivers of real-world impact.