Minimum requirements to ensure carbon delivers sustainability benefits.

The document below is the initial output from Credible's Focus Group 2.1 and the session held during the first European Carbon Farming Summit. It is a live document that will be improved thanks to everyone's participation in this public consultation and the subsequent activities of the Focus Group. By sending your opinion on the matter, you can contribute to bring valuable knowledge to the attention of the broader expert community and policy makers. We therefore invite all stakeholders and simple citizens to make your voice heard. It is the time to contribute to fair and transparent European policies, ones that can help the agricultural and forest sectors to stand out as an important solution to our current climate crisis.

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Feedback received so far

Mathias (Germany) | Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture

05, 24

Specific comments on the document 'Minimum requirements to ensure carbon farming delivers sustainability benefits (Focus Group 2.11)': Relating to Figure 1: The connection of 'carbon removal certification' and 'circular economy' remains unclear. The core of the concept of 'circularity', which relates primarily to the production of consumer goods, is circulation of material at its highest possible quality [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105042]. The criterion of 'highest possible quality' refers to resources with strictly limited availability, such as metals or minerals. This makes little sense with regard to the carbon cycle, or nutrient cycles in general, where the limits are given in terms of agricultural land and environmental burdens. Relating to Annex II: It should be explained how carbon removal activities could provide 'climate change mitigation beyond the net carbon removal benefit's.

Cecilia Sundberg (Sweden) | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

07, 24

Your recommendations on sustainability requirements should build on the state of the art in sustainability assessment of agriculture, which seems not to be the case. There are numerous applied frameworks for agricultural sustainability and a huge body of literature to consider. This reference could be a good starting point: Chopin, P., Mubaya, C.P., Descheemaeker, K. et al. Avenues for improving farming sustainability assessment with upgraded tools, sustainability framing and indicators. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 41, 19 (2021).