The Greenhouse Gas Protocol released its long-awaited Land Sector & Removals Standard (v1.0). This is a big moment for actors in the agri-food sector, especially fertilizer producers and food companies trying to make credible, auditable progress.
We had a read and here are some of our biggest takeaways:
The GHG Protocol, for the first time, acknowledges fertilizers and other agri-inputs inside the land sector boundary of corporate GHG inventories. No more ambiguity around whether fertilizer emissions sit “upstream” or are someone else’s problem. What this means:
In short: fertilizers are no longer a background variable. They are now an explicit focus for Scope 3 strategies.
2. More transparency and more traceability
The Standard introduces a more rigorous framework for allocating and reporting emissions and removals that is more transparent and traceable. Companies can apply different approaches depending on their level of traceability (from broader, origin-based emission factors to more granular, supplier- or farm-specific data) and the credibility of reported emissions and reductions increases with clearer traceability.
The Standard explicitly ties reporting quality to the availability of primary data and supply chain information: inventories built on better traceability (e.g., knowing where and how inputs were used at the farm level) support location- or practice-specific emission factors and more defensible claims, whereas less traceable approaches will necessarily rely on broader assumptions.
In practice, this encourages companies to scale data sharing and traceability with suppliers and farmers over time. Not only to improve the accuracy of land-sector emissions and removals in their Scope 3 inventories, but also to underpin stronger, more credible product- and supplier-level climate claims. The Standard introduces a more rigorous framework for allocating and reporting emissions and removals that is grounded in transparency and traceability. Companies can apply different approaches depending on their level of traceability, from broader, origin-based emission factors to more granular, supplier- or farm-specific data, but the credibility of reported emissions and reductions increases with the depth of traceability.
The Standard focuses on greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory accounting, not carbon credits or offsetting. Companies are expected to track land management emissions and improvements, avoid double counting, and show how interventions across the value chain result in real, attributable emission reductions.
Clearer, more specific claims, such as:
For food companies, this means they need closer collaboration with fertilizer suppliers, traders, co-ops, and farmers. For fertilizer producers, it means evolving beyond generic product claims and becoming part of customers’ Scope 3 reporting and target-setting processes.
The new GHG Protocol standard doesn’t make things easier, it makes them clearer.
This is exactly the gap Proba helps to close.
What now?
Proba supports fertilizer producers and food companies with insetting protocols, MRV, and claims-ready accounting, built for today’s reality and tomorrow’s expectations.
Want to dig even deeper?
Watch the Land Sector and Removals Standard Launch Webinar which is organized by the World Resources Institute. The panel will be ran by GHG Protocol's experts that worked on this standard. We'll be there.