The Do’s and Don’ts of a Buyers’ Club: CAFAMORE recommendations

As the European Union moves forward towards healthier soils and ecosystems through the implementation of the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation, the policy focus is now shifting from certification and supply towards demand and financing: who will buy these units, for what purpose, and under what conditions. In this context, the European Commission has launched an EU carbon credit Buyers’ Club, aiming to stimulate early demand for CRCF certificates from carbon farming and to drive investment towards climate-positive actions in agriculture.

At CAFAMORE, the market, economic and policy dimensions of carbon farming and carbon markets take a central role, particularly in terms of how carbon farming can support wider agri-food system change. In a recently published policy brief, CAFAMORE experts examine the proposed EU Buyers’ Club and provide a series of recommendations on how it should –and should not– be implemented. The document, authored by Jonathan Gardiner, Hugh McDonald and Aaron Scheid (Ecologic Institute), Edouard Lanckriet (Agrosolutions), Simon Martel and Clothilde Tronquet (I4CE) and Jan Peter Lesschen (Wageningen Research) is available here.

The brief, which builds upon the (yet limited) information made available by the Commission and conversations with key actors, mainly argues that voluntary approaches such as the Buyers’ Club will be insufficient to deliver the necessary scale and speed of agricultural mitigation. As a consequence, the Club should not be seen as a long-term solution for financing the agricultural transition, but rather a learning mechanism envisioned to aggregate early demand, test CRCF methodologies, and inform future compliance policies.

Another key consideration is that the Buyers’ Club shouldn’t allow buyers to use CRCF carbon farming certificates instead of reducing their own emissions, as relying only on offsetting can weaken environmental integrity and even lead to higher overall emissions. Moreover, it is crucial to avoid concentration of market power to ensure a diverse and farmer-centred carbon farming ecosystem, which also supports innovation and multiple technological pathways.

Finally, CAFAMORE experts recommend criteria for a strategic portfolio, which targets funding towards activities and projects that are highly additional and likely to generate significant learning and impact. The brief also outlines the importance of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and how co-funding and claims could be governed, and suggests that the Club avoid treating CRCF certificates as interchangeable, as different carbon farming activities have significantly different characteristics such as permanence, reversal risks, additionality and co-benefits, among others.