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How thriveGEO helped turn 100+ stakeholder voices into a blueprint for Europe’s carbon removal infrastructure

thriveGEO leads stakeholder engagement for the Open Geospatial Carbon Registry, a Horizon Europe project building the digital infrastructure for carbon removal certification in Europe. The goal: co-design that infrastructure with the people and organisations who will use it.

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27

Project partners

Working across Europe and Canada to build open, interoperable infrastructure for carbon removal certification.

7

Stakeholder groups engaged

From farmers and land managers to certifiers, buyers, project developers and European Commission representatives.

100+

Participants

Across interviews, surveys, workshops and policy engagement activities.

Challenge Solution Results Partner voices Impact

The Challenge

Putting Europe’s carbon removal and farming policy into practice

About OGCR

Project: Open Geospatial Carbon Registry (OGCR)

The Open Geospatial Carbon Registry is an EU Horizon-funded project developing open, interoperable digital infrastructure for carbon removal certification, with farmer data ownership and affordable monitoring, reporting and verification at its core.

The project brings together 27 partners spanning research institutions, technology developers, universities and commercial providers across Europe and Canada.

Led by OpenGeoHub

thriveGEO'S ROLE

Connecting the human layer and the technical build.

thriveGEO leads stakeholder engagement, dissemination and exploitation for OGCR. The role is not to build the system. It is to make sure what gets built actually works.

That means sitting at the interface between users and developers: translating on-the-ground needs, frustrations and priorities into clear technical requirements, while building a committed community of future users who are actively shaping the system, not just being consulted on it.

Context

Soils hold more than twice the carbon of the entire atmosphere. Europe’s Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming framework (CRCF) is designed to build on this potential: bringing finance into carbon farming at scale, creating a single credible standard, and supporting the EU and member states on the path to their 2050 climate targets.

But carbon farming uptake across Europe has remained low. High administrative burden, fragmented landscapes, low trust and unclear data ownership have all played a role.

Why this mattered

OGCR needed to make sure the future registry was shaped by the people who would rely on it, not built from assumptions.

Building infrastructure without first understanding the people who will use it rarely works.

The stakeholder map runs from individual farmers across Europe to DG CLIMA, DG AGRI and DG DIGIT at the European Commission, with auditors, project developers, cooperatives, registries, foresters, corporate buyers and scheme operators in between.

Each group has different needs, different friction points and a different relationship with trust. Getting the requirements wrong at this early stage means building something that may earn compliance, but not adoption.

The Solution

From 100+ conversations to a technical requirements blueprint

Over six months, thriveGEO designed and delivered a stakeholder validation programme across priority user groups, combining interviews, surveys, workshops and direct policy engagement.

The work turned a complex stakeholder landscape into a clear evidence base for the teams designing and building the registry.

Methodology

A structured pathway from ecosystem mapping to user insight, policy engagement and technical requirements – designed to make sure the future registry reflects the needs of the people expected to trust, use and govern it.

01

Mapping the carbon farming ecosystem

WHAT thriveGEO DID

thriveGEO engaged with the groups that would need to trust or use the future registry, from farmers and land managers to certifiers, buyers, project developers and regulators.

02

Gathering user
insight

Evidence base

The programme combined 31 semi-structured interviews, 35 survey responses and a workshop at the European Carbon Farming Summit with more than 40 participants.

03

Reaching users in their own language

Farmer participation

To support farmer participation, surveys were translated into English, French and Italian, helping capture practical needs across different national and farming contexts.

04

Connecting policy and practice

Policy engagement

Because the European Commission is a direct participant in the future CRCF registry ecosystem, thriveGEO structured engagement through the OGCR Policy Working Group and participation in Commission-led events.

05

Translating insight into requirements

Technical requirements blueprint

The final output was a Stakeholder Analysis and User Requirements document submitted to the European Commission. It maps stakeholder needs, current system gaps and what a trusted European carbon registry must get right to support adoption.

06

Continuing
co-design

Next phase

The stakeholder analysis is not the end of the process. The community built through this phase will continue to support co-design, prototype testing and pilot activities as the platform develops.

The Results

Clear user requirements and a stakeholder community ready to shape what comes next

The stakeholder analysis is now a primary input for system design and build decisions across OGCR’s technical work packages.

User requirements are informing architecture decisions. Validated insights are shaping business case demonstrators. Technical teams now have a clearer understanding of what future users need, where trust breaks down and what the platform must get right to support adoption.

Before

Fragmented needs, unclear expectations and no shared user evidence base

After

A clear requirements blueprint shaped by the people expected to trust and use the registry

A shared requirements foundation

A complex stakeholder landscape has been translated into structured insight that technical teams can use.

Stronger technical alignment

The requirements are helping connect system design decisions to real user needs and workflows.

More practical demonstrators

The findings are shaping business case demonstrators designed around real barriers, including cost, data ownership, proof of impact and landholder value.

An engaged co-design community

Farmers, certifiers, buyers, project developers and farmer representatives are now engaged in a process that will support co-design, prototype testing and pilot activities as the platform develops.

A stronger bridge across the consortium

In a 27-partner project spanning research, technology and industry, thriveGEO is helping keep the human layer and technical layer connected.

Partner Voices

In their own words

OGCR partners reflect on how stakeholder insight is helping connect technical development, business demonstrators and real user needs.

“ ”

Bringing software closer to the end user

“The user requirements have wrangled the chaos of stakeholder interaction and brought clear, structured insight about concrete user needs into the project. They are an invaluable tool for bringing our software closer to the end user.”

Luka Antonić
Senior GIS Developer, MultiOne
Work Package 6

“ ”

Designing for landholder value

“Good stakeholder engagement is hard to do well, especially across this many user groups. thriveGEO approached it rigorously and produced a clear evidence base for the work ahead. For Work Package 7, that matters because the business demonstrators are testing something very concrete: how to democratize access to MRV while ensuring landholders can own the carbon value generated on their land and use it to create real economic value.”

Kelly Ann Ross
Founder, RACE
Lead for the Work Package 7

Impact

The human foundation for a 27-partner technical build

Stakeholder engagement at this scale gave OGCR the user context needed to move from technical ambition to infrastructure designed for real-world use.

Core insight

Stakeholder engagement is not a communications exercise. It is a technical input.

The difference between infrastructure that gets built and infrastructure that gets used comes down to whether the people who will use it were part of designing it.

thriveGEO’s expertise is exactly this: structured engagement programmes that produce clear requirements, build committed user communities, and give technical teams the human context they need to build things that work in practice.

Clear requirements
Committed user communities
Human context

Turn user insight into technical direction

Need to turn complex stakeholder input into decisions technical teams can use?

thriveGEO designs structured engagement programmes that turn user insight into clear requirements, stronger adoption pathways and practical next steps for complex geospatial projects.

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