I am trying to find clarity on how narrow the physical boundary for “within-value chain Removals” needs to be defined, as there is some room for interpretation with what GHGP and SBTi are publishing.
As per GHGP and SBTi, FLAG Removals (i.e. those that can count towards a FLAG target) need to happen on “land owned or operated by a company or within a company’s value chain”. Furthermore SBTi mentions that “reforestation and forest restoration needs to occur on working lands”
Now, I am not sure how “within value chain” and “working lands” should be interpreted. For example:
Company A purchases wheat from a farmer.
This farmer produces wheat (sold to company A) and soy (sold to company B). The farmer also generates removals on 3 different lands: 1) On his wheat field (working land) 2) On his soybean field (working land) 3) On a forest patch next to the soybean field (non-working land, but owned by farmer)
Question: Which removals can company A account for? 1) Only the ones from the wheat field (as this is the product it purchases) 2) From both, the wheat and soybean field (as they’re both “working land” and owned by the farmer who is part of company A’s value chain) 3) From all three sources. (Even though the forest patch is no “working land” it is still owned by the farmer, who is part of Company A’s value chain)
Would be great to hear your thoughts on this!
Luca
I’d opt for option 2. The forest is owned by the farmer but for me it is not part of your production of wheat or soybean and the associated value chain.
That’s really interesting, as I think this is exactly where there is some uncertainty within carbon accounting at the moment.
For Removals it’s not quite clear how narrow the boundary should be defined: i.e. Removals need to come from a) exactly the land used for producing the procured product (i.e. option 1 in my example) or b) Any (working) land of the supplier, no matter what’s produced on it (i.e. option 2 in the example).
It’s also an interesting one because if indeed we follow option 1, wouldn’t this restrict dairy and cattle farmers that do not use any lands directly for e.g. beef or milk production? As they wouldn’t be able to generate SBTi-aligned FLAG removals in their stables, and there is no other farmer-owned land that is directly connected to the milk production, they wouldn’t have the option to generate Removals at all (it would be the feed producers who would need to).
I have to say logically I would also lean towards option 1, account for removals directly linked to the product purchased. What I see in the GHGP LSRG is that scope 3 gross biogenic land CO2 emissions = gross CO2 emissions from land-based carbon pools on managed lands attributable to the reporting company’s value chain.
Regarding your comment concerning beef and milk production and inability to have any removals for those, it is only partly true, a lot of emissions related to cattle farming is coming from growing the food, thus possibility to account for removals, but also there are good levers to reduce methane via special feeding plans etc.
Agree to your points on removals at dairy/ cattle farming - a substantial part of it will come from feed production, which has a huge potential for removals. However, here I was more concerned about removals at the dairy/ cattle farmer itself (not upstream from feed production and considering that a large amount of feeds are not produced on-site but purchased).
In my understanding, reducing methane emission by adapting feeding plans would not result in removals, but rather in reductions. For removals, we’d be looking at the removal and permanent storage of carbon (e.g. increase in soil carbon content) - which becomes tricky if you don’t have any land available for it.
I agree that there is limited removals opportunity on cattle farming. BUT emissions reductions are still more important than removals, and therefore when there are feasible emissions reductions alternatives I think it is ok to not have removals.
I think there is teh tendency to over focus on removals, they are an amazing aid and unique thing in FLAG targets, but emission reduction still should be the main focus.