Second assessment of the draft technical specifications for certification under the EU CRCF

www.oeko.de Policy Brief | 22.05.2025 Second assessment of the draft technical specifications for certification under the EU CRCF Agriculture and agroforestry on mineral soils // Anne Siemons and Lambert Schneider Summary of key findings and recommendations This document provides an assessment of the proposed draft for an EU certification methodology on agriculture and agroforestry on mineral soils (referred to as “draft methodology”) provided on 15 April 2025. Overall, the draft methodology, in its current form, ignores fundamental principles of carbon crediting and does not comply with the quality criteria established under the CRCF. Applying the methodology would result in the issuance of units that do not represent any actual emission reductions or removals. Key issues identified include: • Overall, the draft methodology lacks details on how the requirements shall be operationalised and implemented. In many sections, requirements are formulated as general principles, but it remains unclear how compliance with these requirements must be demonstrated and will be checked. Further elaboration of the methodology is therefore necessary to turn it into a technical document with clear and unambiguous instructions, which operators can rely upon when developing their activities. • Leakage risks are not addressed appropriately and can lead to large overestimation of removals or emission reductions: The methodology does not consider potentially large sources of...