SDAI Insights
Carbon removals are becoming a certification system
A tonne of CO2 captured by a process model is not automatically a tonne of certified carbon removal.
Event date
Thesis
A tonne of CO2 captured by a process model is not automatically a tonne of certified carbon removal. As removal markets mature, the difference between physical carbon performance and certifiable removal is becoming a central modeling issue.
What changed
In July 2026, the European Commission adopted certification methodologies for carbon-farming activities under the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming framework. Separate EU methodologies also cover permanent-removal pathways such as direct air capture with storage, biogenic carbon capture with storage and biochar. The framework adds formal requirements around certification schemes, auditing and registries. This moves carbon removal further away from broad environmental claims and toward a system in which eligibility, monitoring and accounting rules determine what can be certified.
Analysis
Process models and certification systems answer different questions. A process model can calculate capture rate, energy demand, storage losses, cost and lifecycle emissions. A certification methodology determines which activities qualify, how the baseline is set, how durability is treated, what monitoring is required and how units are issued or tracked. Those layers should remain separate. If they are hard-coded together, a policy change can force a scientific model to be rewritten. If they are separated, the same physical model can be evaluated under different certification rules without changing the underlying mass and energy balances.
Engineering implications
Carbon-removal analysis should report at least two sets of results: 1. Physical and environmental performance — gross CO2 captured, net removals, energy use, storage losses, lifecycle emissions and cost. 2. Certification outcome — the quantity eligible under a selected methodology and the rules that determine that quantity. The difference between the two should be visible. For example, a DACCS model may calculate gross captured CO2 correctly while a certification method applies additional rules for lifecycle emissions, storage durability or monitoring. Those rules affect the certifiable outcome, not the physical capture calculation itself.
What to watch next
A future carbon-removal workflow should treat certification rules as versioned configuration above the process and LCA model. Users should be able to see why gross capture, net removal and certified quantity differ, and which assumption or rule causes the difference. That makes the model useful even as policy develops.
Primary source
The EU certification framework is a regulatory system, not a general LCA method. Any SDAI analysis should keep engineering results, lifecycle results and certification eligibility clearly separated and avoid extending EU-specific rules beyond their legal scope.
European Commission, Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming RegulationRelated work
See the research and case studies behind SDAI's technical analysis.