Subsidy
CAP eco-schemes incentivising perennial energy crops
Two-framework evaluation · independent scoring
CRCF (certification)Partial
EU Biomass Strategy (allocation)Not aligned
↯ Two-framework dissonance — CRCF assessment differs from EU Biomass Strategy assessment. The asymmetry is the signal, not a defect.
Type: SUBSIDY
Scope: EU
Status: ACTIVE
Responsible agency: European Commission · DG AGRI
Member-state CAP Strategic Plans use eco-scheme payments to incentivise perennial crops (miscanthus, switchgrass, willow SRC) explicitly for energy use. CRCF-eligible under the carbon-farming sink bucket (b) for the on-farm soil-organic-carbon component, but the headline biomass routing — combustion for heat or biomethane — sits at the BOTTOM of the cascading-use hierarchy codified in RED II Article 3(3) when the same crop could become wall insulation or CLT. Surfacing this dissonance is what ABCDEX exists for.
Sources
- BEuropean Commission (forthcoming). EU Biomass Strategy. Announced under the Clean Industrial Deal / 2040 Climate Target Plan (COM(2024) 63 final). NOT YET ADOPTED as of 2026-05. ABCDEX uses RED II Article 3(3) as the binding cascading-use anchor until this Strategy is formally adopted with a stable COM number; this row is the watch reference only.
- ADirective (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (recast). OJ L 328, 21.12.2018. Article 3(3) and recital 16 establish the EU cascading-use principle for biomass. This is the legally binding anchor against which ABCDEX scores biomassStrategyAlignment until the forthcoming EU Biomass Strategy is formally adopted.