Assessment of the draft technical specifications for certification under the EU CRCF

This document provides an assessment of the draft elements for an EU certification methodology on carbon farming under the CRCF regulation for the activity type peatland restoration through rewetting, published in October 2024.

Overall, the draft elements are still incomplete and currently do not meet all requirements for a technical quantification methodology. The document in some cases uses non-technical language that is more of a descriptive nature and does not provide clear guidance for practitioners on how to design projects that robustly quantify emission reduction impacts of the carbon farming activity.

Without further improvements, a methodology based on these elements would likely fall short of the core carbon principles (CCPs) agreed by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and would in some elements undermine best-practices applied by existing carbon crediting programmes on the voluntary carbon markets. It is recommended that in further developing the methodology to align its structure more closely to best-practices on international carbon markets, including the application of long-established concepts and terms.