1. Introduction
This document summarises the findings from a workshop convened in Q4 2025 by the Carbon Removals Taskforce (CRT), a coalition of retailers, suppliers, MRV providers, NGOs, consultants, and technology partners committed to supporting the transition towards sustainable land management and the delivery of carbon removals within agricultural supply chains.
The CRT’s work primarily focuses on UK agriculture, reflecting both the scope and membership of the Taskforce. At the same time, many UK-based organisations operate international supply chains where the opportunities and challenges for carbon removals differ significantly from those in the UK. Implementation will ultimately be required across both domestic and overseas supply chains, although the types of activities, enabling conditions, and data needs are not the same. This work therefore concentrates on UK agriculture while also highlighting relevant considerations for overseas contexts where appropriate.
The workshop brought together organisations from across the value chain to assess the current state of progress, define an ideal future state, and identify the practical and collective actions needed to accelerate credible and fair delivery of carbon removals. While the findings focus specifically on carbon removals, the CRT recognises the wider importance of sustainable land management for delivering multiple outcomes, including emission reductions, improved biodiversity, enhanced water quality and community benefits.
The outputs presented here reflect a shared view of what is needed to move from fragmented pilots towards coherent and long-term approaches that can be scaled across the UK agricultural system.
2. The context and opportunity
Across the UK agricultural sector, organisations are increasingly exploring how to integrate practices within their supply chains to support carbon sequestration (such as the implementation of regenerative agriculture) and report resulting carbon removals within their corporate greenhouse gas inventories. Executive awareness of the potential for regenerative agriculture to deliver outcomes and meet targets across climate, nature, water, and resilience to climate change is growing, with businesses beginning to define their role in supporting farmers to transition to sustainable land management. Alongside strategy development, many organisations and projects are in the early stages of developing or piloting carbon baselining and measurement approaches.
However, progress remains uneven. Multiple measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems have emerged in parallel across voluntary carbon markets, scope 3 frameworks and academic initiatives. This fragmentation results in duplicated effort, inconsistent data and limited sharing of insights between projects. Suppliers and farmers are frequently asked to provide data for multiple schemes without clear value or reward, leading to administrative burden, data fatigue and reduced engagement.
The UK has an opportunity to move from this fragmented starting point towards a more coordinated, efficient and fair system for carbon removals in the agricultural sector. Affordable and scalable MRV tools can reduce the burden on farmers while maintaining confidence in data quality. Clear and consistent guidance on what constitutes ‘good enough’ data will support alignment between corporate and national reporting. Shared public-private data infrastructure can make it easier for information to flow across projects, while reducing duplication of effort. Most importantly, farmers should be recognised and rewarded for their environmental contributions through transparent funding models and long-term incentives. By aligning investment, data, and policy, the UK can position itself as a leader in credible, farmer-centred approaches to carbon removals and sustainable agriculture.
3. Unblocking barriers for scaling carbon removals in UK agricultural supply chains
The workshop identified several barriers and challenges embedded within UK agricultural supply chains that are hindering progress. To support scaling of sustainable land management for carbon removals but also a whole host of co-benefits, we need scaled, coordinated action across different actors within the supply chain and the wider enabling environment. Below, we summarise four groups of activities needed to scale impact within the UK context.
i. MRV alignment and standardisation
Barriers to scaling and market needs:
Multiple MRV systems and inconsistent methodologies are undermining comparability and confidence in data collection on carbon removals. Organisations face uncertainty over which approaches will be recognised for reporting. There is a need to:
Develop a consistent national approach to carbon removals MRV that is credible, interoperable and cost-effective.
Establish a framework for data quality assurance and standardisation across service providers.
Align the emerging UK approach with international standards such as the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF) to maintain market access and credibility.
Recommended actions:
- Define “good enough” data standards for MRV in agriculture. This should specify acceptable levels of accuracy, frequency, and data sources (e.g. sampling vs remote sensing). This is currently being pursued by AHDB, LUNZ, IGD, UKCEH and the research community, and should involve Defra-led validation of outputs.
- Produce national guidance on accounting methodologies, clarifying preferred approaches for insetting and offsetting, and how these relate to corporate scope 3 frameworks and national greenhouse gas inventories. This should be co-created by Defra, DESNZ, NGOs such as WRAP, and standard-setting bodies such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
- Establish an independent MRV assurance body (potentially within a new public-private governance structure) to evaluate methodologies and ensure consistency with UK standards.
- Coordinate across devolved administrations and with the EU to ensure alignment of approaches and avoid divergence across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the EU. Particularly, ensure national guidance on accounting methodologies is aligned with the CRCF methodology.
ii. Cost and efficiency of data collection
Barriers to scaling and market needs:
The cost of farm-level data collection for carbon removals is high, particularly in relation to soil organic carbon, and datasets are distributed and fragmented across private, public and research initiatives. Many organisations are repeating baseline surveys or maintaining siloed data systems. To reduce cost to implementing organisations and data burden for farmers, there is a need to:
- Reduce the cost and duplication of baselining by coordinating data infrastructure and investment.
- Improve accessibility and interoperability of data to support consistent MRV and wider sustainability reporting.
- Ensure data governance safeguards farmer privacy while enabling aggregated analysis.
Recommended actions:
- Promote interoperability across platforms and systems, ensuring datasets and reporting frameworks can be shared and aggregated where appropriate. Defra and DESNZ could support this through open data standards and common digital infrastructure.The Hestia database and data structure is a good starting point for this work.
- Develop a centralised agricultural data repository to host soil, land-use, management and emissions data. This should build on existing baselining efforts (e.g. AHDB, Defra, IGD initiatives) and align with the forthcoming Farming Roadmap. Access protocols should balance privacy with public good, enabling shared use of anonymised data.
- Create a public-private funding platform to support collective data collection and incentivisation. IGD’s current work on mixed funding models (with public funding of data collection and baselining and private sector contributions focused on incentives and action) could be pursued and expanded to include government match-funding and private sector co-investment, ensuring equitable cost-sharing across the value chain.
- Improve emission factors and activity datasets by investing in collaborative research between Defra, LUNZ, UKCEH, universities and technology providers. This should focus on improving accuracy for UK-specific farming systems, soils and practices.
- Encourage interoperability between corporate and national systems, ensuring company MRV data can feed into national inventories where appropriate.
- Explore alignment with international systems, particularly the EU and global carbon market frameworks, to ensure the UK remains connected to international trade and finance opportunities.
iii. Farmer engagement, incentives and communication
Barriers to scaling and market needs:
Many farmers and suppliers see limited value in participating in sustainable agriculture programmes as the benefits are unclear, there is conflicting advice on the best routes to monetising carbon outcomes from sustainable farming, data collection can be burdensome or duplicative, and there is no consistent narrative about how this work contributes to business resilience or farmer livelihoods.
To ensure scaling of actions to deliver carbon removals throughout the UK agricultural sector, there is a need to:
- Build a clear value proposition for farmer and supplier engagement in programmes by building trust and clarity on farmer benefits from engaging in programmes.
- Develop best-practice guidance for organisations and implementation partners for how to increase farmer participation through clear incentives and contracting guidance.
- Enable farmer peer learning by sharing farmer-led stories of transition and impact, strengthening the imperative to transition on-farm.
Recommended actions:
- Develop practical guidance on farmer contracting and incentive models to support fair participation and data ownership. This could be coordinated through AHDB or WBCSD, drawing on lessons from existing farm programmes and pilot schemes.
- Create a national “learning hub” to collate evidence, case studies and outcomes from farm-level trials and regenerative transition projects. This could host templates for data-sharing agreements, incentives and cost-sharing models, and link to other sector initiatives (e.g. CRT, IGD, LEAF, or Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme).
- Launch a farmer-led storytelling and peer-exchange campaign, delivered in partnership with retailers and project developers. This should use trusted farmer voices and channels (e.g. AHDB, agricultural press, local workshops) to highlight the practical and economic benefits of soil health, carbon removals and regenerative practices.
- Develop guidance for farmers on monetising carbon outcomes to reduce uncertainty and risk with entering these schemes from trusted sources. This should include overviews of the relative benefits and implications of pursuing insetting (private sector scope 3 initiatives) compared to offsetting (voluntary carbon markets) routes for farmers. Government or industry bodies to provide clarity to farmers on preferred actions for engaging in carbon markets.
4. Call to action
We call on government, industry, and research partners to work together to align standards, share data, and build collective infrastructure for carbon removals. With clear guidance, shared tools, and fair incentives, UK agriculture can deliver credible, farmer-centred approaches that benefit both producers and the environment.
As a practical next step, we invite representatives from Defra to join a CRT member workshop in Q4 2026. This will be an opportunity to review our collective 2026 findings, particularly regarding data standards and implications for practical implementation, and explore how these can support national MRV alignment.
We welcome the opportunity to support Defra, AHDB, and the devolved governments by sharing industry perspectives or ground-level evidence to help scale carbon removals. We invite you to draw on the CRT for feedback on draft standards, ensuring they are both credible and practical for the UK’s agricultural sector.