🇪🇺 Hot off the press: Key takeaways from CRCF Expert Group meeting on permanent carbon dioxide removals (CDR) 🇪🇺

👇 Another step closer to having the world’s first government certification scheme for durable CDR. I had the pleasure of participating as the representative of Biochar Europe today. This is what stood out to me today:

➕ Additionality: a sticky topic for any technology that has several revenue streams (e.g. BECCS & BCR). Rightly, the Commission is keen to ensure that we do not end up with incentives that could lead to unsustainable biomass use. However, this has to be balanced with a nascent industry relying on a mix of energy and credit revenue. Take BCR: even if a facility can exist without credits, it would massively benefit and scale faster with access to said credits.

⭕ Going in circles: I cannot remember one meeting where BCR permanence was not discussed. Plus a dedicated scientific workshop with all leading academics. The consultants ploughed through all the research and concluded, well, that BCR is permanent. Time to put the topic to rest.

💡 Room for interpretation: we need to make sure that the CRCF yields fungible permanent removal units. I do worry that the methodologies could leave too much space for interpretation to accredited standards. We need to be specific enough to ensure consistency.

💶 Co-financing: it was great to hear the EU Commission doubling down on its intention to encourage co-financing / double stacking for CRCF certified units, attracting funding from both public and private (VCM) sources. This “controversial” approach is actually pragmatic and will yield the best overall results.

😍 Unrelated to the methodologies, I am getting very excited for the idea of a “European Buyers Club”, as mentioned by the Commission today, which will be discussed further in two dedicated workshops in May (see dates below).

🔜 So what’s next for the methodologies?

- Feedback on the current draft methodologies can be submitted April 9th

- Final draft methodologies presented ahead of the next Expert Group meeting in June 2025

- There will be a public consultation on the delegated acts / methodologies in summer 2025

- End of 2025 / early 2026, the EU Commission shall formally adopt the methodologies

📆 Other important CRCF dates to have in your calendar:

- Workshops on funding for CDR on May 20th/21st

- Public consultation for the implementing act on the verification rules in June 2025

- The first CRCF units should be certified in 2026

- The Union Registry will come online in 2028

- Methodologies will be reviewed in 5 years, so 2030

👏 A big shout out to Chris Malins for navigating this process so diligently, as well as the team at the EU Commission for hosting Christian Holzleitner, Fabien Ramos, Sevim Aktas, and Andrea Klaric. The CRCF is shaping up to be a fantastic foundation for future CDR integrations, hopefully starting with the EU ETS.

❓ What are your takeaways? Does the above resonate? What did I miss?

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