The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol has released its Land Sector and Removals Standard (LSR Standard) — the first globally applicable framework for accounting, reporting, and tracking greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide (CO₂) removals associated with land use and removals. This landmark Standard will take effect on January 1, 2027, closing a longstanding gap in corporate climate accounting by providing detailed requirements for how land-sector impacts are quantified and integrated into corporate GHG inventories.

The new Standard enables companies that own or manage land, or that impact land through their supply chains, to explicitly include land-use emissions and removals — such as those from agricultural activities, soil carbon changes, and technological removal methods (like direct air capture with geological storage) — in mitigation strategies and performance tracking against emissions-reduction targets. It covers land management, land-use change, removals stored in land and geological carbon pools, and emissions from biogenic products across corporate value chains.

For firms setting science-based targets and reporting progress to investors and regulators, the framework offers a credible global benchmark that enhances transparency and comparability of land-sector emissions and removals. By establishing consistent accounting protocols for both emissions and removals, the Standard seeks to improve the integrity of corporate climate disclosures and reinforce corporate commitments toward net-zero goals.

The GHG Protocol developed the Standard through a multi-year global consultation process to address a critical blind spot in corporate GHG accounting: until now, there was no universally accepted methodology for comprehensively incorporating land-related greenhouse gas flows into corporate inventories.