In December 2024 the European Union launched a new voluntary certification framework for carbon removals (CRCF) and hereby initiated a new generation of carbon market activity. The CRCF is part of the EU Green Deal and responds to its overarching goal of turning Europe into the first climate neutral continent by 2050. ‘Carbon farming’ in forests and agricultural lands is now launched as a new business model for European landowners.
In this project we critically examine how carbon farming is made thinkable and operable as a domain of EU climate policy and governance, and how it mobilizes the forestry sector in the European transition to climate neutrality. The project maps the expectations tied to this emerging carbon marketplace by European policymakers, market actors, and forest owners; the measurement and certification methodologies developed to ensure high-integrity credits; the opportunities and challenges actors encounter in their efforts to sell certified forest credits; and the forest management practices and forest futures that are taking form under the CRCF. The project draws upon document analysis and comparative case studies of emerging carbon farming projects in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
