EU Carbon Legislation Newsflash: Day 1 of 3

Ed Nimmons
Director & Co-founder

This week, after a very long gestation period in the legislative process, the EU has agreed two pieces of legislation, which will now become “Directives”, and then be transplanted into national legislation. Specifically, this is the “Green Claims Directive” and the “Carbon Removal Certification Framework”.

Let’s look at the first one, the Green Claims Directive:

Companies that want to make “green claims” (statements like “net zero”, “carbon neutral”, etc.) will have to follow a “like-for-like” principle if they use carbon offsets to neutralize the residual emissions.

This means that the cheaper nature-based offsets (which make up the bulk of the current carbon market) should only be used to offset residual emissions which stem from the natural carbon cycle (e.g. from land use change).

Any residual emissions which ultimately come from fossil fuel use can only be offset through carbon credits which guarantee that physical CO2 is going back down into the same geological stores from which the fossil fuel / CO2 came.

So, just to be clear, using nature-based carbon credits to offset residual fossil emissions will no longer be possible.

Carbon Capture Scotland are offering EU-approved CDR for Permanent Carbon Removal Credits available from 2026 onwards with limited remaining quantities available for long-term off-take agreements to be secured now.

Please contact Sanjay Parekh and the CDR team to discuss how you can secure high quality CDR credits and to make sure you are prepared for incoming legislation.