The Land Sector and Removals Standard (LSRS): What It Is and How Klimato Is Responding

Figure 1. The LSRS accounting categories, recreated in Klimato style. Required categories must be reported by every company in scope; optional categories are reported by choice, and for removals and reversals only when the standard’s integrity safeguards are met. Based on GHG Protocol (2026), Figure 2.

Physical GHG inventory

Additional Accounting Categories (Reported Alongside, Not Netted Into the Inventory)

The safeguards on removals are what keep reported reductions credible. To include a removal, a company needs primary data for the specific land, traceability to where it occurs, ongoing monitoring over time, and a buffer to cover reversals if the stored carbon is later released. Primary data is necessary but not sufficient on its own; all four conditions apply, and removals are always reported separately from emissions, never netted against them.

Two optional categories need a brief note. For biogenic product CO₂, whether it is reported inside the inventory or separately depends on how completely the product’s biogenic carbon cycle has been accounted for. When the full cycle is captured, the emissions can sit within the inventory. When it is not, they are reported separately, so a partial picture does not understate the total. Product carbon storage is also optional and rarely applies to food, because it covers carbon held in long-lived biogenic products such as timber or bio-based materials, whereas food is consumed quickly and does not store carbon over time.

In short: the required categories are what every company in scope must report. The optional categories (removals, the gross biogenic flows, product carbon storage, and reversals) are reported only by choice, and for removals and reversals only when the standard’s integrity safeguards are met.

4. Key Terms

These terms sit at the center of the standard. Clear definitions matter, because they shape what gets measured.

Land Use Change

The conversion of natural ecosystems, such as forest or grassland, into farmland. The carbon held in trees, plants, and soil is released, almost entirely as CO₂. Because that carbon had been stored for decades or longer, its release is treated as a pulse attributed to the conversion, which the standard spreads over a 20-year look-back period. For many sourced commodities, land use change is among the single largest contributors to the footprint (Accountability Framework, 2026).

Land Management

The emissions from working land that is already in agricultural use, year after year. The standard splits these into two subcategories. Net biogenic CO₂ emissions are the CO₂ from changes in soil and biomass carbon as land is cultivated. Production emissions are the non-CO₂ gases (methane from livestock and rice, nitrous oxide from fertilizers and manure), together with fossil CO₂ from inputs such as lime and urea. Methane and nitrous oxide matter out of proportion to their volume, because over a century each warms the climate far more than CO₂. Methane warms roughly 30 times as much and nitrous oxide around 270 times (IPCC, 2021). This is why the standard separates the gases rather than reporting one combined figure.

Biogenic Emissions

Emissions from recently living material that is part of the short-term carbon cycle, such as CO₂ from burning crop residues or wood, or methane from livestock. Biogenic CO₂ is tracked separately because growing plants reabsorb it within the current cycle, but biogenic methane and nitrous oxide still add to warming and are always counted.

Fossil Emissions

Emissions from carbon locked in geological reserves for millions of years, released by burning fossil fuels: diesel in machinery, gas for heating and processing, and the energy used to make synthetic fertilizers. Unlike biogenic carbon, this adds carbon to the atmosphere that was not part of the recent cycle.

CO₂ Removals

CO₂ taken out of the atmosphere and stored, either in soils and biomass through practices such as agroforestry, cover cropping, and improved grazing, or through removal technologies. Reporting removals is optional, and the reason is integrity. Removals are harder to measure than emissions, can take years to verify (soil carbon especially), and can reverse if land is later plowed, grazed differently, or burned. Rather than require uncertain numbers, the standard lets companies include removals only when they meet strict conditions: primary data, traceability to the specific land, ongoing monitoring, and a buffer to cover reversals. Removals are never subtracted from emissions; the two are reported separately (GHG Protocol, 2026). For example, a dairy buyer whose supplying farms adopt agroforestry can report the resulting soil and biomass carbon gains only if it has farm-level data, monitors the carbon over time, and holds a reserve in case a field is later converted back. If it cannot meet those conditions, it does not report the removal, with no penalty for leaving it out.

Land Occupation

The area of land, in hectares, that an activity ties up. It is a pressure metric rather than an emissions figure, and the standard requires every company in scope to report it for Scope 1 and Scope 3 (GHG Protocol, 2026).

Carbon Opportunity Cost (COC)

The carbon that a piece of land could store if it were left to its natural vegetation instead of being farmed (Searchinger et al., 2018). It is the basis for measuring land carbon leakage.

Land Carbon Leakage

The emissions that occur when a company’s use of land pushes food or feed production elsewhere. For example, using cropland for biofuel can displace food farming onto newly cleared land. The standard measures this displaced impact using carbon opportunity cost.

5. Traceability and Data Granularity

At the heart of the standard is traceability, which means knowing where a product was grown. The level of traceability a company can establish sets the spatial boundary for its accounting, and with it the values it is allowed to report. The more granular the boundary, the more specific the values and the more evidence required to support them (GHG Protocol, 2026).

Klimato’s database supports reporting up to the sourcing region level, which covers the needs of most food businesses. The two most granular levels, land management unit (farm) and harvested area, require companies to obtain primary data directly from their suppliers. Klimato can then validate that data and add it to the database, so it strengthens future calculations rather than being used once and lost.

A company can always start with global or country-level factors and refine as traceability improves. Better data does not only lower uncertainty; it is what allows a company to report supply-chain reductions and removals against its targets.

6. The Link to SBTi FLAG Targets

The LSRS defines how land emissions and removals are accounted for; it does not set targets. The Science Based Targets initiative’s Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) Guidance is what turns that accounting into reduction targets. The two are designed to work together: FLAG defines the targets, and the LSRS provides the inventory underneath them (SBTi, 2026).

In March 2026, SBTi published FLAG Guidance Version 1.2, which requires companies setting FLAG targets to use the final LSRS from January 1, 2027, and to report emissions and removals separately even though the FLAG target itself combines them (SBTi, 2026). For a food business with significant land emissions, this means LSRS-aligned data is becoming the basis for credible target setting, not only for reporting.

7. How Klimato Is Responding

Klimato’s methodology is built on the GHG Protocol and is independently reviewed. The LSRS adds new requirements, so Klimato is extending that methodology to align with the standard, ahead of its 2027 effective date. The work runs in two connected workstreams. This section describes the direction; the full methodology is documented separately.

Extending the Emission Factors

Klimato’s emission factors already separate land use change from land management (a distinction the standard now makes mandatory for everyone), and its land use change accounting already applies linear discounting over a 20-year look-back period. The look-back period is the 20-year window in which a land conversion still counts toward current production; linear discounting then spreads that conversion’s emissions evenly across those 20 years, rather than charging them all to a single year. To meet the rest of the standard’s detail, the factors are being extended to:
•       Report land management emissions gas by gas, separating the net biogenic CO₂ from the production emissions (methane and nitrous oxide), rather than carrying a single combined value;
•       Separate fossil carbon from biogenic and land-based carbon, so each is visible;
•       Update the underlying values with newer data, drawing on studies and sources that report emissions at this level of granularity.

Two further steps are sensible to make at the same time:
•       Extend the system boundary to cradle-to-grave where the use case requires it;
•       Refine the proxy methodology and data quality assessment, so the evidence and confidence behind each value are clearer.

Together these changes keep a usable default for every ingredient while giving users far more detail about what each factor is made of.

Upgrading the Database Structure

More granular emission factors only help if the database can store and serve them correctly. The structure is being upgraded to host this higher resolution, which means:
•       storing emission factors at more than one spatial resolution, from global down to farm level, and split by component and by gas;
•       tagging each value with its data source, quality score, and the traceability level it corresponds to;
•       applying the right value to the right claim, so a company reporting at country level and one reporting at farm level each receive a defensible number.

This extends the data quality scoring already in place. A direct result is greater transparency: users of the Klimato database will be able to see the components, sources, and quality behind a factor, not only the headline number. Where companies provide validated farm-level data, it feeds back into the database and improves coverage over time.

Built on an Independently Reviewed Foundation

This work builds on a methodology that is already independently reviewed: by WRI and its Coolfood Initiative for the database and label methodology, and by Bureau Veritas for the product carbon footprint methodology. Aligning to the LSRS is an extension of that reviewed base, on the standard’s own timeline.

8. What the Added Detail Enables

The shift from a single combined value to gas-by-gas, component-level, traceability-aware data is significant work. It is worth being clear about what that detail makes possible.
•       More accurate and more defensible footprints. Source-tagged data carries its own evidence trail, which makes results easier to verify and audit.
•       Recognition of supply-chain action. Companies that can trace products to specific regions or farms can report lower land use change values and include removals against their targets, where the data supports it.
•       Readiness for FLAG and net zero targets. LSRS-aligned data is required for FLAG target validation from 2027, with emissions and removals reported separately (SBTi, 2026).
•       Transparency in the data itself. Because each factor carries its components, sources, and quality, users can see what sits behind a number.
•       One foundation, many uses. The same granular data can serve LSRS reporting, FLAG targets, customer requests, and procurement requirements.

A note on regulation: Neither the ISSB standards (IFRS S1 and S2) nor the European Sustainability Reporting Standards currently reference the LSRS (KPMG, 2026). Companies reporting under those frameworks should treat the LSRS as the GHG Protocol’s accounting method and assess how it affects their own measurement, rather than assuming an automatic regulatory requirement.

9. Practical Steps for Food Businesses

Most of these steps build capability that is useful regardless of how quickly a company adopts the standard.

Klimato will publish its methodology detail as this alignment work progresses.

10. Conclusion

The LSRS sets a clear, consistent method for how food businesses will account for land emissions and removals from 2027. It rewards companies that understand their supply chains with more accurate footprints and the ability to report the reductions and removals they can substantiate. Klimato is extending its independently reviewed methodology and upgrading its database so that this level of detail is available when companies need it. The most useful step a company can take now is to improve traceability, because that is what turns the standard from a reporting obligation into a more accurate and more defensible account of its impact.

11. References

1.      Accountability Framework initiative. (2026). New GHG Protocol standard provides clear guidance on land use change emissions.
2.     Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F. N., & Leip, A. (2021). Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nature Food, 2, 198–209.
3.     GHG Protocol (WRI & WBCSD). (2026). Land Sector and Removals Standard and Guidance, Version 1.0 (Standard v1.1). Effective January 1, 2027.
4.     IPCC. (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (global warming potential values).
5.     IPCC. (2022). Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AFOLU share of global emissions).
6.     KPMG. (2026). Land sector emissions and CO₂ removals.
7.     Klimato. (2026). Product Carbon Footprint and Database Methodology. klimato.com/science-and-data.
8.     Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). (2026). Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance, Version 1.2.
9.     Searchinger, T. D., Wirsenius, S., Beringer, T., & Dumas, P. (2018). Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change. Nature, 564, 249–253.
10.    World Resources Institute (WRI) / Coolfood. Coolfood’s Alignment with the GHG Protocol and Science Based Targets Initiative.
11.     Bureau Veritas. Critical Review—Klimato CF Calculation System and Methodology.