Toute l'actualitéWhile carbon credit markets have long been shaped by a wide range of private standards, the European Union is now seeking to establish a common language around an issue that has become central to climate neutrality: projects contributing to the reduction and removal of CO₂ in Europe. In this context, the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) represents a major structural milestone. Adopted in its core principles in 2024, this European framework aims to harmonise how certain carbon removal and storage activities are measured, certified, verified and monitored, in order to strengthen the comparability and credibility of the results claimed. For companies and investors, the stakes are immediate. As requirements for transparency, monitoring and impact measurement continue to rise, the ability to clearly distinguish between what constitutes emissions reductions and what qualifies as carbon removals has become a key credibility factor. The CRCF does not merely acknowledge the role of removals; it seeks to define the conditions under which they can be demonstrated, framed over time, and made intelligible to stakeholders.
A European framework to certify carbon removals
Climate neutrality rests first and foremost on a massive reduction of emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3. However, long-term pathways also recognise the need to scale up carbon removals—whether nature-based or technological—particularly to address a share of residual emissions that are difficult to eliminate. In this context, the challenge is to ensure that the removals mobilised meet sufficiently robust integrity criteria, supported by explicit and coherent accounting rules.
This is precisely the ambition of the CRCF: to create a European certification infrastructure—voluntary yet structuring—designed to reduce fragmentation, raise the level of requirements, and make results comparable, traceable and verifiable.
Three categories of activities, one shared logic
The CRCF is intended to frame the certification of three main categories of activities. First, so-called permanent removals, which refer to forms of storage designed to last over long time horizons, often associated with industrial or geological solutions. Second, carbon farming activities, which encompass nature-based practices aimed at increasing carbon storage in biomass and soils. Finally, the framework covers carbon storage in products, where carbon is incorporated into materials or goods with a significant lifetime.
This structuring marks an important shift: the focus is no longer solely on carbon units in the traditional sense, but on certified activities under a European framework, supported by a harmonised approach to verification and monitoring. By defining the conditions under which CO₂ removal can become a demonstrable and durable result, recognised through a common methodology, the CRCF will enable the issuance of carbon credits within the European Union under a shared standard recognised by both EU institutions and Member States.
Turning carbon removal into a verifiable result
At the core of the CRCF lies the central role of evidence. For a carbon removal to become a trusted instrument, it must be based on robust quantification, explicit measurement rules, and the ability to be audited. This requirement goes beyond the headline volume: it also applies to the conditions that underpin credibility—additionality, storage duration, management of reversal risks, data transparency, and long-term monitoring.
Quality thus becomes a demonstrable attribute, grounded in methodology and governance, rather than a purely declarative label.
A framework under construction
The CRCF is currently in its operationalisation phase. The general framework adopted in December 2024 sets out the architecture, but its practical implementation depends on the development of methodologies, verification rules and registries capable of translating principles into fully executable requirements, depending on project types (agricultural, forestry, technological, etc.).
This process is already visible through draft delegated acts—legal instruments through which the European Commission specifies certain elements of a regulation, under a mandate from the legislator, in order to make its application operational—two of which have already circulated in view of their adoption. The delegated act covering certain nature-based projects (including agroforestry and afforestation) is currently subject to public consultation, with publication expected in spring 2026.
These draft texts illustrate an already highly structuring evolution: the European Union does not treat nature-based solutions as a homogeneous block, but advances through distinct methodologies tailored to the realities of specific practices. Two carbon farming approaches are detailed in particular: agroforestry and plantation (afforestation). Without prejudging their final versions, these documents confirm the overall direction of the CRCF: a certification framework grounded in evidence, requiring a scientifically based baseline definition, demonstration of additionality, explicit quantification rules, and long-term monitoring, with heightened attention to permanence and reversal risk. I n other words, Europe is not merely encouraging nature-based removals; it is seeking to define the conditions of their robustness, in order to make these results more comparable and more credible for economic actors.
What this could change for companies and investors
For companies and investors alike, the CRCF carries a central implication: it makes carbon reduction and removal projects more legible by establishing a European standard recognised by public institutions. The credibility of a climate strategy will no longer hinge solely on the existence of a budget allocated to sequestration or removal projects, but on the ability to clearly explain the nature of the certified activity, the quantification methodology, the duration of storage, the associated safeguards and the monitoring arrangements.
This is a decisive point for net-zero strategies. It encourages early clarification between emissions reductions—which must remain the foundation—and the mobilisation of removals as a complementary instrument, whether as a contribution or as a means of addressing residual emissions, depending on the reference frameworks adopted. By progressively harmonising and auditing methodologies, the CRCF raises expectations around evidence and documentation, directly influencing project selection criteria as well as the formulation of public commitments.
For investors, the CRCF signals a maturing landscape. It opens the way to a more structured environment for certified removals, with improved visibility on risks related to quality, monitoring and permanence—without, however, eliminating the need for thorough due diligence.
Reforest’Action’s approach: high-integrity, nature-based projects
Corporate climate contributions are most meaningful when they rely on projects capable of delivering demonstrable results, monitored over time and aligned with increasingly demanding frameworks. Reforest’Action operates within this dynamic by developing and implementing high-integrity, nature-based carbon sequestration projects, with a rigorous approach to measurement, traceability and transparency—offering organisations concrete solutions to structure their climate contribution over both the short and long term.
The CRCF marks a major shift. Europe is no longer merely acknowledging the role of carbon removals; it is actively creating the conditions for their certification and comparability. By establishing a common, structuring framework, the CRCF raises the bar on evidence, monitoring and durability of certified results, and accelerates a transformation already underway: the transition from a fragmented landscape to a more legible, harmonised and auditable reference system. For companies and investors, understanding this framework becomes a strategic advantage—not only because it clarifies the conditions under which a carbon removal action can be considered credible by the European Union, but also because it reshapes market expectations. Tomorrow, the value of a carbon project will lie not merely in the results announced, but in the robustness of its methodologies, the transparency of its safeguards, and the coherence of its uses within the European regulatory context.