Green Claims: urgent call to build a strong European permanent carbon removal sector

Last week, Bioenergy Europe signed an open letter together with other 52 industry players, NGOs, and think tanks, asking for clear rules to support investment in permanent carbon removals.

As the Council is close to finalising its General Approach on the Green Claims Directive, the signatories call for clear rules that will support necessary investment in permanent carbon removals, an essential pillar of the fight against the climate crisis.

The signatories highlight the importance of supporting the carbon removal sector in this historical moment. As global scientists have warned that global temperatures are set to rise to at least 2.5 Celsius this century, partners call for swift action.  

For this reason, the carbon removal sector stresses the importance of policies that can incentivise corporations to purchase permanent carbon removal credits to attract private capital, and that incentivise governments to provide financial support to build up this new industry.

This is currently a small-scale sector, mainly relying on a few funding tools to get projects off the ground, including private purchasing of carbon credits through the Voluntary Carbon Market and state subsidies. In this context, decisions by companies to purchase such credits often hinge on their ability to use those credits as part of making certain environmental claims. And the willingness of states to provide significant funds to climate projects hinges on their ability to count the climate outcome towards national climate targets. Therefore, all contributors call for the Green Claims Directive to:

• Allow compensation claims to counterbalance both corporate emissions on the road to net-zero and residual emissions
• Support only high-quality carbon credits to combat greenwashing and ensure transparency
• Allow co-claiming between one country and one corporate entity to mobilise the public and private finance needed to scale up the CDR sector.