Five methodologies launched for consultation, including Gold Standard’s first biochar carbon removal standard

This is a Press Release by Gold Standard, shared by illuminem, to update the global sustainability community with the latest relevant updates.

The new methodologies reflect rapidly evolving expectations around baseline credibility, permanence, and real-world applicability. They introduce enhanced monitoring approaches, stronger safeguards, and greater accessibility, ensuring projects deliver credible impact across diverse geographies and scales. All methodologies are aligned with the aims of the Paris Agreement.

A first for Gold Standard: Biochar carbon removal

Part of the release is Gold Standard’s first biochar carbon dioxide removal methodology, Production and Application for the Removal of Carbon via Biochar (PARC).

PARC establishes a pure carbon removal framework, issuing credits exclusively for the durable sequestration of CO2 and explicitly excluding avoided emissions. It features a three-track architecture that scales requirements from micro-scale, distributed production to large industrial facilities. This ensures the methodology is accessible to smallholder and decentralised systems while maintaining high scientific rigour.

Developed in response to the rapid growth of the biochar sector, PARC directly addresses a key market challenge: how to balance scientific precision, scalability, and equitable access. Its modular, tiered design enables participation from both artisanal producers and advanced industrial facilities, while enforcing strict carbon stability criteria aligned with the IPCC (2019) definition for long-term carbon stability.

By combining strict durability thresholds, digital chain-of-custody tracking, and alignment with national net-zero pathways, PARC addresses key market gaps around credibility, scalability, and equitable access, particularly in the Global South.

Crucially, its “pure CDR” mandate ensures credits reflect only true net removals, strengthening confidence in environmental integrity at a time of increasing scrutiny across CDR markets.

A modernised approach to forest carbon

The Sustainable Transformation Through Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation (STARR) methodology represents a scheduled technical revision of Gold Standard’s forestry framework, aligning it with evolving market expectations, scientific developments, and ongoing work under the Paris Agreement.

The update strengthens baseline approaches, quantification pathways and monitoring to ensure the methodology remains robust, practical and fit for purpose across diverse forestry contexts. It introduces differentiated pathways suited to different project types and scales, improving methodological equity, while expanding the scope to include revegetation activities and enhancing overall clarity and usability.

This revision represents a considered modernisation of the methodology to ensure it remains at the forefront of the market.  Recognising the importance of predictability for project developers, Gold Standard is committed to a structured and transparent transition process, including opportunities for stakeholder input, practical implementation support, and ongoing dialogue throughout the consultation to ensure the updated methodology reflects operational realities while maintaining strong market credibility.

Unlocking mitigation in rice systems at scale

The Digital Rice Emission Avoidance Methodology (DREAM) introduces a new approach to agricultural carbon accounting, enabling the stacking of multiple sustainable farming practices within a single project.

By treating specific field areas as assets, DREAM allows developers to combine interventions such as water management, residue handling, and nutrient optimisation to maximise mitigation outcomes. Its two-track structure enhances both rigour and accessibility: digital MRV and satellite data alongside conservative default factors lower barriers for smallholders, while a second track involving direct measurement ensures high-precision accuracy for large-scale projects.

Developed to address the challenge of scaling climate action across millions of fragmented rice farms, DREAM replaces costly and complex modelling approaches with a transparent, stratified empirical framework. This enables credible quantification while lowering transaction costs through digital MRV and conservative defaults, expanding access to carbon finance for smallholder farmers.

The methodology prioritises real-world applicability and farmer outcomes, including yield safeguards and simplified monitoring approaches, making it a practical pathway for scaling climate-smart agriculture. Additional built-in safeguards, including digital verification tools, dynamic adjustments for weather variability, and protections against yield loss, ensure that emissions reductions are both credible and socially responsible.

Next-generation standard for off-grid energy access

Developed with d.light, the Powering Universal Lighting via Solar Energy (PULSE) methodology updates and replaces legacy approaches for off-grid lighting.

PULSE introduces a shift from measuring emissions based on historic poverty-level
consumption to crediting based on minimum service levels that reflect real human needs. Combined with 100% digital asset tracking, embodied emissions accounting, and strict waste management requirements for old batteries and solar PV panels, the methodology significantly strengthens both credibility and development impact.

The methodology introduces bounded suppressed demand, ensuring crediting reflects realistic household energy needs while preventing overestimation. It also mandates a full digital census of devices, eliminating uncertainty around deployment and usage.

The new methodology also integrates forward-looking elements such as alignment with future grid expansion, ensuring projects remain relevant as energy systems evolve. By combining high-integrity carbon accounting with strong environmental and social safeguards, PULSE sets a new benchmark for delivering verified emissions reductions alongside tangible energy access benefits.

Bridging climate, water and ecosystem restoration

The Carbon Removal and Methane Reduction from Eutrophic Systems methodology targets an emerging and under-addressed climate challenge at the intersection of water systems and emissions.

It enables both carbon removal and methane avoidance crediting through interventions that rapidly collapse algal blooms and prevent their decomposition into methane. With strict ecological safeguards, measurable water quality improvements, and biodiversity requirements, the methodology goes beyond carbon to deliver tangible ecosystem and community benefits.

By linking water security, climate mitigation, and ecological restoration, it opens a new category of high-impact projects within the market.

2026 Standards Setting Workplan

Alongside these consultations, Gold Standard has published its 2026 Standards Setting Workplan, providing transparency on its pipeline of methodology development and updates.

The Workplan outlines standards under preparation, ongoing revisions, and recent releases, helping stakeholders anticipate and engage with the next generation of carbon market infrastructure.

Read the complete workplan here.

Gold Standard invites project developers, carbon credit buyers, and wider stakeholders to review the methodologies and provide feedback during the public consultation period.

All consultations available here.