How we wrote the CORE framework to include program-scale carbon removal
Most carbon removal standards today are built around a single assumption, that every effort to remove carbon is a project, whether it be a specific site, infrastructure, or amount of carbon (tons) accounted for. That assumption can leave a lot of the carbon removal work out. Carbon180’s Equity & Justice and Science & Innovation teams have joined to launch the CORE Carbon Removal Framework to offer standards for examining whether a carbon removal intervention is community informed, open-access, reviewed, and evaluated.
The framework lays out the principles and standards that belong in any good carbon removal work and the practices that bring them to fruition. As part of our CORE Framework blog series, we discuss why the distinction between projects and programs matters, and why we use “intervention” as the word that holds both.
Our use of the term “intervention” when describing how carbon removal is done was a careful choice. Our early drafts of the CORE framework featured the phrase “carbon removal project” pretty often. Sourcing internal feedback last year, our teammates specializing in nature-based carbon removal highlighted for us how limiting the term “project” can be.
Carbon removal projects
Our teammates pointed out that carbon removal projects describe work that’s done under clear, often narrow protocols for proving that carbon has been removed and stored durably. The type of work that’d fall under the category of a project include technology-based carbon removal pathways, such as direct air capture hubs and ocean alkalinity enhancement sites, operating at local scales and accounting for removed carbon individually of each other. Here’s what we mean:
Projects operate locally.
Carbon removal projects are funded and designed site by site. Bringing a carbon removal project online requires site selection and built infrastructure. These activities trigger federal, state, and local requirements for engaging and communicating impacts with the people living and working proximate to a project site. Projects need to earn social license and center local and indigenous knowledge to scale quickly and well.
Projects use bottom-up accounting.
Projects utilize precise, bottom-up accounting to produce detailed reports of the carbon they’ve removed. A bottom-up approach measures for and disclosing a project’s direct operational emissions, and transparently disclosing uncertainties for each source across a project’s lifecycle. This approach is site-specific and involves making reports that are publicly accessible and disclose assumptions, data sources, and findings.
Writing our framework around what constitutes a good carbon removal project excluded an entire field of carbon removal where removing carbon dioxide is more of a bonus than the main attraction.
Carbon removal programs
With that feedback in mind, we pivoted. We reworked our CORE framework to include standards for good carbon removal projects and programs. The latter encompasses carbon removal work that’s nature-based (e.g. reforestation), and done through jurisdictional supports and incentives that may support broader climate goals either directly or incidentally. Let’s break that down.
Programs are regional.
They’re typically implemented at a policy or sector level and can include multiple activities done in tandem like conservation tillage and perennialization taking place across multiple states or regions.
Programs use top-down reporting.
Carbon reporting for programs is often done through aggregated, top-down reporting. Top-down reporting protects the personal information of participating stewards and a reporting program’s ability to make carbon removal claims transparently (accounting for variables and uncertainties) and with integrity. Top-down reporting uses both system-level claims and samples from individual program sites to offer strong removal baselines.
Programs serve climate goals, not carbon removal goals.
What we consider to be carbon removal programs are really programs where carbon removal also happens. What we mean by that is, carbon removal is not the ultimate goal for the majority of federally sponsored carbon removal programs. In reality, programs are designed to deliver climate and environmental benefits like improved soil and water quality, increased biodiversity, and higher crop yields. Carbon removal is an offshoot or co-benefit of these programmatic practices.
What we’ve learned about why the term intervention is needed
Carbon removal happens at different scales. Some efforts are organized as individual projects – like a single facility or site – while others operate at a program level, where outcomes are measured across many sites or policies.
Today, most carbon removal standards are designed for project-level accounting, even when that approach doesn’t fit. This mismatch creates unnecessary barriers for land and ocean-based implementers, while overlooking the results that are equally critical for the health of our climate.
How this affects the carbon removal field
Project-level rules are often applied to program-scale efforts. That leaves farmers, ranchers, and community groups trying to meet verification requirements designed for large single-site projects. It blocks participation and obscures the collective outcomes that programs are designed to deliver.
Program-level interventions that could deliver durable, large-scale climate benefits are undervalued because they cannot easily produce tradable credits.
The field lacks clear guidance on how to evaluate and credit removals achieved through public programs, policy incentives, or collective land management.
A focus on project-level accounting encourages narrow project design, rather than holistically supporting integrated, steward and community-driven strategies that build carbon storage, ecological resilience, and social resilience.
How CORE advocates for good carbon removal interventions
We’ve added:
- Project and program-specific definitions to each of our practices;
- Project and program-inclusive recommendations to each of our practices;
- Case studies illustrating project and program-level activities;
- Hypotheticals examining concerns specific to project and program managers; and
- Tags to our resource hub for identifying the information most relevant to the people making projects and programs happen.
Tl;dr: What was once our framework about good carbon removal projects is now our framework about good carbon removal interventions: a term inclusive of projects, programs, and all of the work in between.
Check out our CORE Carbon Removal Framework to engage with our full list of principles and practices.
Explore our glossary to see how we’ve defined interventions, projects, programs, and more.
Let us know what you think of the framework! Share your thoughts through our feedback form or email us at core@carbon180.org.