China expanded CCER to cover pig manure biogas recovery and centralised agricultural waste treatment, aiming to curb methane and generate tradable CO2e reductions.
China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs have jointly issued 2 new methodologies for voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction projects, on December 17,2025. The move widens the scope of the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) market into livestock and poultry manure management.
CCER refers to verified, quantified GHG reductions from projects in China — such as renewables, forestry carbon sinks and methane utilisation — that are registered in the national voluntary GHG emissions reduction trading and registration system.
Under China’s national and local carbon market mechanisms, covered emitters can purchase CCERs to offset a certain share of their allowance compliance, reducing the cost of meeting obligations. For sellers, CCERs can become a new revenue stream.
Methodologies are the core rulebook for developing, implementing, validating and verifying voluntary GHG reduction projects in a specific field.
Methodology 1: Large-scale pig farms must recover and use biogas
The first methodology targets “biogas recovery and utilisation projects for manure from large-scale pig farms.” It requires participating pig farms to build an on-site anaerobic digester and to recover and use the biogas produced.
Eligible utilisation routes must include at least one of the following: power generation, biogas supply, or biomethane production. After treatment, digestate and digestate liquid should be applied to farmland.
However, the methodology does not apply to biogas projects that mix manure from multiple pig farms, or to projects that mix pig manure with one or more other agricultural wastes — such as manure from other livestock and poultry, crop straw, or vegetable residues. Those mixed-feedstock projects fall under the second methodology.
According to the MEE, the focus on large-scale pig farms is linked to both sizeable mitigation potential and distinct handling requirements. With disease prevention in mind, straw is generally not added in these systems. China’s national GHG inventory report indicates that in 2021, methane emissions from livestock and poultry manure management reached 110 million tonnes CO₂emissions, with pig manure accounting for about 70%.
The MEE notes that anaerobic digestion-based biogas recovery can both avoid methane emissions from manure and displace fossil fuels with the captured biogas, helping reduce CO₂ emissions — supporting China’s “dual carbon” goals while lowering environmental pollution.
Methodology 2: Centralised agricultural waste treatment, including biogas projects
The second methodology covers “centralised agricultural waste treatment projects.” It is linked to an estimated annual output of about 4 billion tonnes of agricultural waste in China, including about 3.05 billion tonnes of livestock and poultry manure and about 870 million tonnes of crop straw.
Project owners are required to sign cooperation agreements with livestock producers and crop growers, clarifying responsibilities and obligations and ensuring that neither projects nor credited reductions are double-counted. The centralised treatment projects should also include biogas engineering components.
Experts estimate that projects meeting the requirements of the second methodology could generate annual emission reductions of about 3–5 million tonnes CO₂emissions.
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