Eligibility and scope

Eligible technologies

All projects certified under this methodology must cause additional carbon removals by

capturing biogenic CO₂ at a point-source resulting from the processing of an eligible biomass feedstock, and
permanently storing this biogenic CO₂ for over 1,000 years in eligible geological storage sites.

Project Developers may transfer all or part of the captured CO₂ to storage sites for permanent storage to issue removal Rainbow Carbon Credits (RCCs). If part of the captured CO₂ is transferred for Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU), no removal RCCs will be issued for that fraction of the CO₂.

The Project Developer and entity receiving carbon finance is the operator of the capture facility. An operator is a natural or legal person, or public entity, that operates or controls the carbon removal project, or holds decisive economic power over the technical functioning of the project. Storage site operators are not eligible Project Developers.

Carbon removals under this methodology are estimated to have a permanence horizon of at least 1000 years. Reversal risks and baseline removals are assessed according to this duration.

Eligible CO₂ sources

Captured CO₂ shall be a by-product of production of goods, energy and services, and shall not be generated for the sole purpose of the BioCCS project.

The following CO₂ point-sources are eligible, if they are generated from eligible biomass feedstock:

biogenic CO₂ from thermochemical treatment of biomass (e.g. combustion at bioenergy facilities, pyrolysis, gasification)
biogenic CO₂ from biochemical treatment of biomass (e.g. anaerobic digestion at biogas facilities, fermentation)
biogenic CO₂ from treatment of biomass mixed with other waste substances (e.g. municipal solid waste incineration)
biogenic CO₂ from other industrial processes on a case-by-case basis.

At the capture site, the project's biogenic CO₂ may be captured alongside ineligible CO₂. Only the biogenic part of the project's captured CO₂ shall be issued credits. This includes:

Capture of fossil CO₂ generated by the capture process, called associated CO₂
Capture of CO₂ from a mixed stream. This is defined as
- CO₂ streams generated and captured together: a stream of mixed fossil and biogenic CO₂, generated from feedstock that includes a share of fossil-based material, or
- CO₂ streams generated separately, and captured together: the co-capture of the project CO₂ stream and one or more CO₂ streams from project-unrelated sources at the same capture facility. This includes fossil CO₂, biogenic CO₂ from sustainable (zero-rated) biomass and biogenic CO₂ from unsustainable (non-zero-rated) biomass.

For example, the liquefaction unit of a BioCCS project at a biogas production site is powered by electricity from a diesel generator. The emissions of fossil CO₂ from that generator are captured alongside the biogenic CO₂ and transported for permanent storage.

This is associated fossil CO₂ emitted as a result of the capture process

For example, a waste incineration plant burns municipal solid waste, generating a CO₂ stream containing both fossil and biogenic CO₂ The BioCCS project captures the mixed stream, liquefies it and sends it for transport and permanent storage.

This is CO₂ from a mixed stream, generated and captured together

For example, a BioCCS project at a biogas site shares its liquefaction unit with neighboring biogas sites that are not registered under the project. The project's CO₂ is co-liquefied with CO₂ from these unregistered sites. Even though that CO₂ is biogenic and from sustainable biomass, it is ineligible because its source is not registered under the project.

This is CO₂ from a mixed stream, generated separately and captured together

The CO₂ stream composition shall comply with all applicable legal, regulatory, and third-party operator requirements.

🇪🇺CRCF requirement: Confirmation of the origin of the CO₂ stream

If the facility at which the CRCF-project captures CO₂ is not subject to monitoring of the biogenic CO₂ amount under the EU Emission Trading System (EU-ETS), Project Developers shall provide access, immediately at request, to representatives of the VVB, Rainbow or relevant national authorities to allow unannounced C14 testing of the CO₂ stream leaving the facility, and if relevant, prior to being mixed with any separately captured fossil CO₂ stream. If the biogenic origin cannot be confirmed, then no credits shall be issued for the corresponding monitoring period.

Eligible biomass

The following requirements determine project eligibility, and apply to all biomass fractions. Separate Leakage and Environmental and social safeguard requirements also apply to specific biomass types.

Project Developers shall demonstrate that biomass:

could not have been used as main material products (e.g. wood for construction), and
falls into one of the categories listed below.

The entire project is ineligible if any fraction of the CO₂ generated from the underlying facility comes from biomass

not listed below, or
derived from soybean cultivation and palm oil plantation (see the Leakage section on indirect land use change for more information).

Biomass shall be categorized accordingly:

Biomass type

Description

Forest waste

Secondary forest waste: Natural but not primary old-growth forest, may still be managed for timber
Managed forest waste: Managed mixed-use forests that may include agroforestry, plantations or rotational logging

Necessary tree removal

Necessary tree removal from any forest: Damaged trees, or trees removed for planned forest management such as preventing disease spread or wildfires

Agro-food waste

Residues otherwise left on soil or reapplied to soils for nutrient recycling, through mulching, composting, or spreading
Residues otherwise burnt in the field, with no substantial return of nutrients or organic carbon to soil
Food processing facility waste

Municipal solid waste

Solid waste collected by or on behalf of municipal authorities, and disposed of through waste management systems.

Municipal sludge

Sewage sludge and biosolids recovered from municipal wastewater treatment systems.

Animal waste

Animal manure and slurry.

Invasive species

Woody or herbaceous plants proven to be locally or regionally invasive (non-native and causing environmental or human harm).

Marginal energy crops

Energy crops grown

on marginal, degraded or contaminated land, or
as a cover crop or intermediary crop.

Primary energy crops

Energy crops grown as main crop on agricultural land, if this land has been repeatedly cultivated for energy crops for at least 20 years prior to the start of the project's activity.

This biomass type is eligible for BioCCS projects capturing CO₂ from anaerobic digestion (biogas) only.

Eligible storage

All BioCCS project activities, including capture, transport and storage, shall be located in jurisdictions with established regulations for the geological storage of CO₂, namely countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom and the USA. In Canada, geological storage is permitted in the province of Alberta, while capture and transport activities are allowed nationwide. These regulations mandate:

Full site characterization and risk assessment as a precondition for storage permits,
Continuous monitoring for fugitive CO₂ leaks during and after injection, with regular reporting to authorities, and
Enforceable corrective measures and long-term liability provisions to detect and mitigate any potential reversals.

Project Developers shall provide a valid and current regulatory control document proving the storage site is approved for geological storage of CO₂ under the relevant national or local regulation. This can be in the form of a permit, license or authorization.

The capture facility of a BioCCS project is allowed to be located in a different country from the storage site/s used by that project, provided they are all eligible under this methodology.

🇪🇺 CRCF requirement: Eligible storage

For CRCF-projects, the capture facility shall be located in the European Union and the storage site(s) shall be permitted under the Directive (EU) 2009/31/EC on the geological storage of carbon dioxide.

Certification requirements

Crediting period duration

The maximum duration of the crediting period for projects certified under this methodology is 15 years. Upon reaching the maximum duration, a project's crediting period may be renewed twice, according to the Crediting Period Renewal procedure.

Monitoring period duration

The default monitoring period duration is one year, but may be shorter at the Project Developer's request. Project Developers shall submit a Monitoring Report at least once per 12 months. Failure to do so shall result in the project being deregistered.

Post-crediting monitoring period

The post-crediting monitoring period shall be the duration until responsibility for all geological storage sites used by the project has been transferred to the relevant competent national authorities, in accordance with the applicable national storage site regulation.

Site audits

Validation site audits for projects under this methodology shall be performed in-person at the capture site and follow the requirements in the Rainbow Procedures Manual section on site audits. Where a project comprises multiple capture sites, the Validation and Verification Body (VVB, the auditor) shall visit all sites.

Versioning and project compliance

When this methodology is revised, projects are allowed to continue under the previous methodology version used for their initial validation for subsequent verifications of RCCs. However, Project Developers are strongly encouraged to update their projects to comply with the latest requirements whenever possible.

Project scope

One project is defined as:

the operation of one or more CO₂ capture facilities,
- capturing CO₂ from the same type of point-source (e.g. anaerobic digestion, biomass combustion)
- using the same CO₂ capture, purifying and cleaning technology
- located within a single country,
the storage of CO₂ at one or more storage site(s) complying with the rules in Eligible storage
operated at sites that are under the oversight or data access of a single Project Developer, regardless of whether the developer directly owns or manages each site.

The project scope is cradle-to-grave and includes all processes associated with the capture, transport and storage of CO₂. This includes but is not limited to the following:

all removals from storing the eligible fraction of CO₂,
all project emissions from the capture, transport and storage processes that are additional to the business-as-usual scenario, including
- emissions from CO₂ generation (if applicable, see Generation of CO₂),
- embodied emissions from infrastructure and machinery used by the project,
- emissions from energy and material use along the entire supply-chain,
- emissions from biomass sourcing (if applicable, see Biomass fractions)
- leakage emissions (if applicable, see Biomass fractions and Leakage).

See the GHG quantification Project Scenario section for more details.

Baseline scope

The standardized baselines presented below shall be revised at least every 5 years. A more conservative baseline scope may be applied on a case-by-base basis. It must be representative and transparently justified.

Baseline carbon removal

The baseline shall include any permanent carbon storage of the generated CO₂ that would have occurred in the absence of the project. For BioCCS projects, a standardized baseline of zero removals is set, assuming that no carbon capture activity would have occurred under business-as-usual conditions.

Permanent carbon storage from the alternate fate of the biomass feedstock used by the project is addressed in Leakage.

Baseline CO₂ generating activity

Project Developers shall categorize the project's carbon capture site either as a

Retrofit project, retrofit/additional to existing site, or
Greenfield project, installation of a new site. Projects qualify as a greenfield if the time between the start of operations of the biomass conversion facility and the start of the BioCCS project (i.e. installation of the carbon capture unit) does not exceed four years, unless the Project Developer can prove that biomass conversion and carbon capture were not co-designed.

Project Developers shall prove the extent of existing operations of any connected activities using historical proof of operations of the existing site/s. These existing operations are excluded from the project scope, and considered to be part of the business-as-usual baseline scope, because they would have occurred anyway in the absence of the project.

See the GHG quantification: Capture stage emissions section for more details.

For example, if the project is a retrofit adding CO₂ capture to an existing bioenergy plant:

the embodied emissions from infrastructure for the underlying bioenergy plant are not counted towards project emissions, and
the emissions from biomass production, supply and conversion, used to generate bioenergy and the captured CO₂, are not counted towards project emissions

because they would have been generated anyway for the business-as-usual bioenergy plant operations.

A fraction of emissions from the above-mentioned processes may still be included in the project scope if the project uses a fraction of the site's bioenergy to power the capture unit. This bioenergy fraction is called the parasitic load. The parasitic load energy is attributed a fraction of the bioenergy site's total emissions, including from infrastructure, biomass cultivation, and other processes.

Biomass fractions

Biomass is subject to different methodology requirements including:

Project eligibility, in Eligible Biomass: Biomass types, from with the CO₂ captured by the projects is generated.
Sustainability, in Environmental and Social safeguards: compliance with a set of criteria for each biomass category to demonstrate sustainability.
Project emissions, in GHG Quantification: Emissions from production, supply and conversion of biomass for the generation of CO₂ that shall be accounted for in the project's GHG quantification.
Leakage: Biomass-related leakage emissions driven by biomass demand from the project. Types of leakage include counterfactual carbon storage, diversion of biomass and indirect land use change emissions.

The methodology requirements apply to different biomass fractions (defined below) depending on the baseline scenario (i.e. retrofit or greenfield).

The different components are summarized below:

Biomass type

The qualitative type and source of biomass

waste
- forestry waste, necessary tree removal, agro-food waste, invasive species, municipal solid waste and sludge, animal waste
energy crops
- primary and marginal energy crops

Biomass fraction

An accounting construct to delineate which fraction of biomass is used for what purpose

baseline vs additional biomass (retrofit)
biomass allocated to CO₂ generation vs allocated to bioenergy generation vs parasitic load biomass (greenfield)

Biomass requirements

The Rainbow crediting and eligibility requirements that the given biomass fraction and category are subject to

Project eligibility
Sustainability
Project emissions
Leakage

Biomass fractions for retrofit scenario

In a retrofit scenario, two biomass fractions can be defined:

Baseline biomass: The biomass consumed by the underlying facility as it existed prior to the retrofit.
Additional biomass: Any extra biomass used in addition to the baseline quantity defined above. This includes extra biomass procured for the following purposes:
- meeting the energy demand of the carbon capture equipment (also called the parasitic load), or
- compensating for any decrease in net energy output resulting from the retrofit.

Table 1 below sets out the requirements for biomass fractions in retrofit projects.

Requirement

Additional biomass

Baseline biomass*

Project eligibility

Yes

Yes (all biomass)

Sustainability

Yes

Yes (all biomass)

Project emissions

Yes

Yes (parasitic load only)

Leakage

Yes

Yes (parasitic load only)

*If the energy demand of the capture unit is covered internally by the parasitic load, then the corresponding parasitic load biomass is subject to the Project emissions and Leakage requirements. If the energy demand is covered through external energy sourcing, then there is no parasitic load, and the baseline biomass is only subject to Project eligibility and Sustainability requirements.

Biomass fractions for greenfield scenario

In a greenfield scenario, there is no baseline biomass, because the entire site is new and there is no business-as-usual biomass consumption. Biomass consumption is driven and motivated by the mixture of co-products from the multifunctional site, and its emissions shall be allocated as such. The multiple functions that drive biomass demand include

the carbon removal project (CO₂ generation for capture and storage),
and other functions such as energy generation or waste management.

In this scenario, three biomass fractions are defined:

Biomass allocated to CO₂ generation: The share of biomass whose production, supply and conversion emissions are allocated to CO₂ generation, and counted in the project scope.
Biomass allocated to product generation: The share of biomass whose production, supply and conversion emissions are allocated to the generation of other products such as bioenergy, and excluded from the project scope.
Parasitic load biomass: The share of total biomass consumed by the facility that is used to meet the energy demand of the capture unit (the parasitic load), and whose production, supply and conversion emissions are counted in the project scope. The parasitic load biomass fraction cannot generally be attributed to either of the other two fractions because it is initially used for product generation (making bioenergy), and is then diverted to the project (as the parasitic load energy use). It is therefore treated as a standalone fraction.

Table 2 sets out the applicable requirements for the biomass fractions in greenfield projects.