1 October 2024

Acceptability of Pending NUTS2 Values in Sustainability Declarations

NUTS2 values are typical GHG emissions values for the cultivation of agricultural raw materials on territories classified as level 2 in the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics. These values must be reported to the European Commission by Member States or third countries and if the Commission recognises them to be accurate, they can be used instead of actual or default values (NUTS; see Art. 31(2) RED II). The availability of NUTS2 values is, at present, limited (see also System Update of 19 December 2023). New NUTS2 values have been submitted to the European Commission by several Member States and are awaiting official approval via respective Delegated Decisions.

We recommend the following guidelines for the use of NUTS2 values:

When issuing a sustainability declaration (SD), First Gathering Points or individually certified farms, must choose a valid GHG option for eec; either default values (when available for the specific crop) or actually calculated values. In addition, they may indicate the appropriate NUTS2 regional code on the SD. If the NUTS2 values have been recognised through an EU Implementing Decision by the time the Proof of Sustainability (PoS) for the final biofuel is issued, the final biofuel producer may use the NUTS2 values for eec instead of the original GHG option. NUTS2 values, however, are not a direct replacement for DDV values. They can only be used if all feedstock and allocation factors relevant for the supply chain are available to the final biofuel producer so that the conversion to the correct unit (gCO2/MJ biofuel) is possible. We have added a respective field to the ISCC sustainability declaration and PoS templates (v3.1) that are available in the client section (login required). 

The European Commission publishes a list of already issued Implementing Decisions and a list of countries for which the updated NUTS2 values have already been positively assessed. Additionally, we acknowledge that Member States may accept NUTS2 values already at the stage of positive technical assessment by the Commission. One example is the recent announcement from the German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, BLE). The BLE already recognises the positively assessed NUTS2 values for Germany until the Implementing Decision has been published. Please see the BLE website for further information (in German only).  

Please contact the responsible authority in the respective EU Member State for further details in this regard.