When CRCF gets real for buyers.

The Commission had said the three carbon farming methodologies would enter into force in the third quarter of 2026. That quarter has closed. Checked on 2 October 2026, the DG CLIMA methodologies page still reads: once the Delegated Regulation enters into force, certification schemes will be able to apply for recognition of compliance with these methodologies. The Delegated Regulation for mineral soils, peatland rewetting and afforestation was adopted on 10 July 2026 and has since been in scrutiny by Parliament and Council, which is followed by publication in the Official Journal and entry into force twenty days later.

Context: Adoption is step four of seven, not the finish line, and the distinction decides what you can buy. Until entry into force, no certification scheme can even apply for recognition under these methodologies, which means no soil, peatland or afforestation project can be certified under the CRCF. Anyone offering CRCF carbon farming units today is describing a framework that is not yet in force. The delay itself is not a signal of trouble: scrutiny is the ordinary procedure and runs two months, extendable on request by Parliament or Council. What it does mean is that the Buyers' Club carbon farming track, and with it the demand side for land-based removals, starts later than the slide decks suggest.

At its first public Buyers' Club webinar, DG CLIMA put numbers and dates on several threads at once. The 2026 pilot aims to make and announce purchases from two to five projects by year end, all permanent removals certified under the CRCF. A Commission proposal on national climate targets is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and would set separate national targets for emission reductions and for carbon removals. And the Commission has started work on guidance for buyers on how CRCF units may be used and what may be claimed, covering neutralisation at the net-zero point, ongoing emissions responsibility, and value-chain reporting under scope 3, with a draft in December 2026 and the final version in March 2027. In its own survey of 56 buyers, that guidance was the single most requested form of support, and 58 percent named regulatory uncertainty and reputational risk as the first barrier to investing.

Context: The guidance is the part to watch. Buyers have been told for two years what a CRCF unit is, but not what they may say once they own one, and the Commission's own survey confirms that this, not supply, is what holds purchases back. Until March 2027 any claim remains a judgement call. The national targets matter for a different reason: separate targets for removals would turn a voluntary market into national demand, and that is a larger shift than the Buyers' Club itself. Note the pilot's modest scale, two to five projects, against how much attention the Club receives.

Three further schemes applied for recognition under the CRCF in August 2026: SURE-CRCF, Carbon Standards International and ClimatePal EU. They join Isometric, Puro.earth, Rainbow Standard, Oncra Certifications and Planet First Registry, which applied in June and July. The Commission assesses each against Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2358 and the approved CRCF methodologies. Its own page lists all eight as in progress and records no formal recognition decision so far.

Context: This is the link in the chain that decides when anything can actually be certified. No project holds a CRCF certificate today, and none can until at least one scheme is recognised. Eight applicants in three months is a healthy number, but the queue has not moved: the earliest applied in June and is still in assessment. Carbon farming schemes cannot even apply yet, because those methodologies are not in force. If you are buying, treat any promise of CRCF-certified units before a recognition decision as a promise about the future, not about the product.

The European Commission tabled its EU ETS revision. It raises the cap by 250 million allowances over 2031 to 2040, auctioned so the revenue centrally buys BioCCS and DACCS certified under the CRCF Regulation. The purchased removals back up the extra allowances rather than entering the ETS directly, with a 10 million allowance contingency reserve. The proposal also slows the cap decline (linear reduction factor 3.7% for 2031 to 2035, then 1.7%) and lets in up to around 2% Article 6 international credits from 2036. It still needs European Parliament and Council agreement, expected to conclude around Q1 2027.

Context: For buyers this is the demand signal that matters most. It turns the EU itself into a large, structural buyer of CRCF-certified permanent removals alongside the Buyers' Club, and is the clearest move yet from a voluntary CRCF market toward compliance-linked demand. Read the headline number carefully: it is 250 million allowances, not 250 Mt of removals. The proposal binds the EU to auctioning those allowances and spending the revenue on an equivalent amount of permanent removals, not to a fixed tonnage. How much CDR that actually buys depends on the price gap between allowances and removals in the 2030s, and could be materially less than 250 Mt. Further caveats: it is only a proposal, the volumes run from 2031, and it covers permanent removals (BioCCS, DACCS), not carbon farming. One detail worth watching: the programme would buy only BioCCS and DACCS, not biochar, even though biochar has a CRCF methodology in force. The Commission's impact assessment concedes biochar generates permanent CRCF units and is the most deployment-ready option, but cites thin long-term research and the market effect of its lower cost.

An open letter coordinated by the International Soil Carbon Industry Alliance (ISCIA) and signed by 52 organisations urges the European Commission to build structural demand for CRCF carbon farming units. It flags a widening gap: European supply of CRCF-eligible carbon farming units is projected to exceed 10 Mt CO2e per year by 2028, against a Buyers' Club offtake target of only 1 to 2 Mt CO2e by 2030, while voluntary corporate demand has fallen in real terms since 2023. The letter asks the Commission to use the Article 18 review (due 31 July 2026), the Q4 2026 LULUCF and Effort Sharing revision and the ETS Phase 5 review to give CRCF farming units a defined compliance role and to issue operational claims guidance aligned with the GHG Protocol and SBTi.

Context: An industry coalition position, not a Commission decision, so weigh it as advocacy. But the numbers point at the real carbon farming risk for buyers: plenty of certified supply, little structured demand, and the usability of units still unresolved. It is the mirror image of permanent removals, where demand outstrips supply, and it lands squarely on the 2026 CRCF review.

The WBCSD One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition published cross-industry recommendations on scaling the EU agricultural transition through CRCF. Key demands: CRCF-certified units should be allocated preferentially to actors within the issuing supply chain, CRCF must be aligned with the GHG Protocol to enable Scope 3 accounting, and transaction and measurement costs should be reduced to drive broad adoption of regenerative practices.

Context: For buyers, this is the first major cross-industry position paper explicitly advocating supply-chain-first access to CRCF credits and GHG Protocol alignment — it signals that large corporate coalitions are actively shaping the demand-side rules of the CRCF market.

Puro.earth started a CRCF Program to certify CRCF Certified Units for EU-based DACCS, BioCCS and biochar projects, in line with the adopted CRCF methodologies, and applied to be recognised as a certification scheme under the CRCF Regulation. It runs alongside the existing Puro Standard. For buyers it is an early, concrete route to source CRCF-eligible permanent removals through established registry infrastructure.

DG CLIMA held a public webinar on the recognition process for certification schemes under the CRCF Regulation. It covered requirements from Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2358 and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/285. The recording and slides are to be published on the event page.

DG CLIMA published a news item on the first CRCF Days (20-21 May 2026, Brussels). Certification schemes can now apply for recognition by the Commission. The EU Buyers Club is described as voluntary market coordination for permanent removals and carbon farming, with offtake agreements expected by the end of 2026.

The same DG CLIMA item of 29 May states that the Commission will present a CRCF review, as part of a package on national targets, at the end of 2026. The review will assess how CRCF units can be used under the GHG Protocol and the SBTi. This comes amid open questions on SBTi V2 compatibility.

The European Commission published a Roadmap towards Nature Credits (COM(2025) 374): units representing an independently certified, nature-positive outcome, measured with a recognised biodiversity metric. It is distinct from CRCF and from carbon credits. The CRCF link is now explicit: carbon farming methodologies carry mandatory biodiversity co-benefits, and a draft Horizon Europe 2027 work programme (in consultation) tasks projects with using CRCF carbon farming Buyers' Clubs as a template to later replicate for nature credits.

Context: Keep the three apart: a nature credit is not a CRCF unit and not a carbon credit. For CRCF the overlap is real, one carbon farming project may sit across both agendas through biodiversity co-benefits. Early and not yet buyable, but this is where the carbon farming demand and financing conversation is heading.