How to buy CRCF, without the guesswork.
Price per tonne is the easy part. The harder question is whether a method even counts for what you need it for. This is the short version for buyers.
1. Does it count for you?
CRCF certifies the tonne. Whether that tonne is worth anything to your company is decided elsewhere, by the accounting and claims rules you report under.
Five layers. Work out which apply to you before you look at projects.
- Inventory and accounting. The GHG Protocol governs how emissions and removals enter your books. Its Land Sector and Removals Standard was published in January 2026, with guidance in June 2026, and applies to reporting from 1 January 2027. It is the foundation and applies whether or not you set validated targets. Forestry is being handled separately.
- Targets. The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard sets what you may count toward a net zero target, with sectoral tracks such as FLAG for companies with significant land and agriculture emissions. Voluntary, and only binding if you seek validation.
- Mandatory disclosure. CSRD and ESRS E1 in the EU. Gross Scope 1 to 3 stays unadjusted, removals are reported separately. This is law, not choice.
- Public claims. What you may say in marketing is governed by EU rules on environmental claims, separately from what you may report. We do not track this layer in detail, treat it as a legal question for your own counsel.
- Compliance. The EU ETS and Article 6. No adopted compliance demand for CRCF units today, see part 4.
What SBTi decided
The final SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0, published in June 2026, keeps CRCF units eligible for neutralisation, and the change from the draft matters for European buyers. The second consultation draft of November 2025 said in C29.6 that removals used for neutralisation "shall not be simultaneously claimed by another entity for compliance or NDC accounting purposes". A removal inside the EU is counted in the EU inventory, so that wording put CRCF units in question. The final standard dropped it. What remains is C46.6, a duty to report whether the credits were authorised by the host country and subject to corresponding adjustments, and R46.1, a recommendation to prefer removals not simultaneously claimed against a country’s NDC. A recommendation, not a condition. It becomes mandatory for new targets from 2028.
If a farmer in your supply chain sells a CRCF unit
This matters most if you have farmland or biomass in your own supply chain. If a farmer in your value chain sells a CRCF unit, can you still count the same tonne toward your own target? The GHG Protocol answers it: no. Requirement 30 of its Land Sector and Removals Standard says a company "shall not double count" a tonne generated in its value chain with a tonne issued as a credit that is used as an offset. The tonne stays in your physical inventory, but you report a second set of figures for target progress, "adjusted for issued GHG credits", with that tonne taken out. The farmer sells it, you do not count it again. This applies from 1 January 2027. Two things remain open: the standard lets programmes and regulations set rules that take precedence, so the CRCF can still shape this, and the Commission's guidance on use cases is due in draft in December 2026.
2. Choose the unit that fits the claim
Start from what you need to say, then pick the method. Permanence is the deciding difference.
Start from the claim
- CSRD reporting. Under ESRS E1, gross Scope 1 to 3 stays unadjusted. CRCF units are reported separately and are not netted against your emissions.
- Neutralisation under a net zero target. This usually needs permanent removal units, not temporary carbon farming units.
- A contribution claim. A public statement like "we fund European carbon removal" gives you more freedom, but the unit type still sets how strong and how durable that claim is.
One limit to know: CRCF units count toward EU climate goals and the EU NDC, not toward third-country NDCs or CORSIA.
The four unit types
- Permanent removals from DACCS, BioCCS (BECCS) and biochar. Centuries, do not expire. The strongest basis for a neutralisation claim, because they do not reverse.
- Carbon farming sequestration from soils, biomass, afforestation and forestry. Temporary, at least 5 years. Real climate value, but reversible, so a weaker neutralisation basis. Many net zero frameworks do not accept them to neutralise residual emissions.
- Storage in products, for example mineralisation in building materials. Durable, at least 35 years, so it sits in between.
- Soil emission reductions, including the rewetting and restoration of peatlands. These cut emissions coming out of soils rather than taking carbon out of the air. Carbon farming therefore spans both sequestration and reductions, and a unit from this category is not a removal at all, so it cannot back a removal claim.
Practical takeaway: if you need to neutralise residual emissions for a net zero target, budget for permanent removals. Use temporary farming and forestry units for contribution claims and to support European agriculture, not as a substitute for permanent removal.
Building a portfolio
The rule that shapes a portfolio comes from SBTi, not from the CRCF. Criterion C46.2 of the Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 says residual emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases "shall" be neutralised with long-lived removals, and only the remainder may use short-lived ones. The standard puts the long-lived share at 41 percent at net zero, the median of the IPCC's 1.5 degree pathways.
Mapped onto CRCF units, that gives a simple order. Permanent removals cover the long-lived part. Storage in products sits in between and needs a case-by-case look. Carbon farming sequestration is short-lived. Soil emission reductions are not removals at all, so they neutralise nothing.
One property matters more than most buyers expect: carbon farming units and product storage units expire. The CRCF ties their validity to the end of the monitoring period, after which the carbon counts as released. A permanent removal unit does not expire. Plan the timing too: permanent removals are scarce and expensive today, and carbon farming cannot be certified until its methodologies are in force. Our methodology tracker shows which category becomes buyable when.
Three things sold as climate action
Buyers are offered three different instruments as if they were the same. Only one of them can be a CRCF unit that neutralises.
| Removal | Reduction | Cancelling ETS allowances | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What happens | CO2 is taken out of the air and stored | An emission does not occur | An allowance is taken off the EU carbon market |
| Can be a CRCF unit | Yes | Only soil emission reductions in carbon farming | No |
| Neutralises under SBTi | Yes | No | No |
Allowance cancellation has one more catch. Whether a cancelled allowance means one tonne less depends on the EU's Market Stability Reserve. When the surplus of allowances in circulation sits in the buffer zone, the Commission says the reserve already removes the excess, and an extra cancellation adds little. Above the upper threshold, the reserve absorbs only 24 percent, and a cancellation does more. Ask anyone offering this which year their impact claim assumes.
3. What it costs today
No CRCF price exists yet, so treat everything below as orders of magnitude, not quotes.
Voluntary-market proxies as broad ranges, in US dollars per tonne:
- Biochar, roughly 125 to 270.
- BioCCS (BECCS), a few hundred.
- DACCS, roughly 500 to over 1000.
- Carbon farming and forestry, lower, often temporary units.
What the Commission expects to pay
A firmer reference point comes from the Commission's own impact assessment for the ETS proposal. It models the price it expects to pay per removal unit when it starts buying, in euros:
- BioCCS, 214 in 2030 falling to 176 in 2040.
- DACCS, 428 in 2030 falling to 278 in 2040.
These are assumptions in a modelling annex, not prices anyone has paid. They are useful as the EU's own working view of where permanent removal costs are heading, and they sit well below today's voluntary-market levels for DACCS. Third parties have argued they are too optimistic, which matters because the purchase programme is sized on them.
4. Where demand is heading
The biggest open question for prices and availability. We keep the levels strictly apart.
The compliance link
- Decided. The 2040 climate law gives domestic permanent removals a directional role under the EU ETS. The operative mechanism is not yet legislated.
- Proposed. On 17 July 2026 the Commission proposed integrating permanent removals into the EU ETS: 250 million allowances over 2031 to 2040, auctioned to centrally buy CRCF-certified BioCCS and DACCS. Now heading into Parliament and Council with a likely conclusion around Q1 2027, not yet adopted.
- In discussion. Linking CRCF units to the allowance price, a separate Union target for removals, and how the design lands in the final law.
Read the headline number carefully: 250 million is allowances, not tonnes of removals. The revenue buys an equivalent amount, so how much CDR it actually funds depends on the price gap in the 2030s and could be materially less than 250 Mt.
So buying early is partly a bet that this integration arrives. Honest framing: it is proposed, not decided, and the negotiations run into 2027. We track every move on the feed.
Why buyers engage now anyway
- CSRD reporting evidence.
- Supply security and price fixing through multi-year offtakes.
- Regulatory preparation, including a possible future ETS link.
- Local European quality and a credible story.
- Mitigation beyond your own value chain. SBTi V2.0 recognises a broader role for market-based mechanisms and for action outside the value chain, which includes removals. That is a route to act before any compliance demand exists.
One concrete route is the EU Buyers' Club, the Commission's voluntary market platform for CRCF units. It went live in 2026 with an open survey for companies to register buying interest, and targets an initial set of permanent-removal purchases by December 2026.
International credits and Article 6
CRCF is the European, domestic route. The EU 2040 climate target proposes allowing up to 3 percent international carbon credits from 2036, aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. That is a proposed amendment to the European Climate Law, still in discussion, not an operative mechanism. A realistic European strategy is a CRCF-aligned domestic core, with international Article 6 credits possible for a limited portion once the rules settle.
5. Buying well
Good practice for a first purchase, and how to read our labels.
- Start from the claim, then pick the method, not the other way round.
- Prefer EU project locations if CRCF eligibility matters to you. You see it on each profile.
- Favour registry-verified projects over developer-stated ones, and ask for the registry link.
- Use multi-year offtakes to lock supply and price while the market is young.
- Document everything for CSRD, keep removals separate from gross emissions.
Offtakes and pre-financing
The sentence to know before any contract: the CRCF has no units in advance. Article 9(3) of the regulation lets a registry issue units only on the basis of the certificate from the re-certification audit, so after the removal has been verified. Anything you pay before that buys a promise of future units, not a unit, and the delivery risk sits with you until the audit is done.
Two contract types cover most of the market. A pre-purchase is paid upfront, before any tonne is delivered, and is how early technologies get tested. An offtake commits you to buy future tonnes at a fixed price, paid only on delivery. Frontier, whose published template has become the reference, defines delivery as the moment the buyer holds the issued credits, not the moment of removal. An offtake does not fund the plant directly. It makes the plant fundable, because it shows a bank a committed buyer.
Large European projects stack several sources. Stockholm Exergi, listed in this directory, won Sweden's first reverse auction for bioenergy with carbon capture, just over SEK 20 billion over up to 15 years. It received EUR 180 million from the EU Innovation Fund. And Microsoft contracted 3.33 million tonnes, with deliveries from 2028 over ten years. The Swedish aid rules state that the support "will be adjusted taking into account possible revenues", naming voluntary carbon removal certificates. A buyer of those units is therefore partly replacing public money. That is good for taxpayers, and it is the most concrete form of the question every buyer should ask: what does my money make happen that would not happen without it?
Five clauses worth having in a CRCF offtake:
- Delivery means an issued CRCF unit after the re-certification audit.
- A condition precedent that a certification scheme for the activity is recognised. Today none is.
- A minimum quantity by a set year, and what happens below it.
- Public funding for the same tonne, disclosed, with how it is netted.
- Reversal: for carbon farming, who carries the liability and how.
How we label status
- CRCF eligibility depends on the project location being in an EU member state, not on where the developer is based.
- Status is three-tiered: developer-stated, registry-verified, CRCF-certified. That wording is ours, not official EU terminology. It exists to show how strong the evidence behind a listing is, nothing more. The first CRCF-certified units are expected in 2027, so nothing is certified yet. The chain of trust explains why.
Background reading and primary sources are on our useful links page, common questions on the FAQ.