Certification of compliance
Article 9
1. To apply for certification of compliance with this Regulation, an operator or a group of operators shall submit an application to a certification scheme. Upon acceptance of that application, the operator or group of operators shall submit to a certification body an activity plan that includes evidence of compliance with Articles 4 to 7 and the expected net carbon removal benefit or the expected net soil emission reduction benefit generated by the activity, and a monitoring plan. Groups of operators shall also specify how advisory services are provided, in particular to small-scale carbon farming operators. For carbon farming activities, Member States may provide advice to farmers in the framework of the farm advisory services referred to in Article 15 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115. In order to promote the interoperability of relevant databases on carbon farming, where applicable, Member States may include, in the identification system for agricultural parcels referred to in Article 68 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2116, key information listed in Annex II to this Regulation, including management practices related to the carbon farming activity, the start date and end date of the activity, the unique number or code of the certificate of compliance, the name of the certification body and the name of the certification scheme. 2. The certification scheme shall appoint a certification body, which shall conduct a certification audit to verify that the information submitted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article is accurate and reliable, and to confirm compliance of the activity with Articles 4 to 7. When, as a result of that certification audit, the compliance of the information submitted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article has been verified, the certification body shall issue a certification audit report that includes a summary, and shall issue a certificate of compliance that contains, as a minimum, the information set out in Annex II. The certification scheme shall review the certification audit report and the certificate of compliance, and make the certification audit report, in full or, where necessary to preserve the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information, in a summarised form, and the certificate of compliance publicly available in its certification registry or, once established, in the Union registry provided for in Article 12 (the ‘Union registry’). 3. At least every five years, or more frequently where so specified in the applicable certification methodology based on the characteristics of the relevant activity, the certification body shall carry out re-certification audits to reconfirm compliance of the activity with Articles 4 to 7 and verify the net carbon removal benefit or the net soil emission reduction benefit generated by the activity. As a result of that re-certification audit, the certification body shall issue a re-certification audit report that includes a summary, and, where appropriate, shall issue an updated certificate of compliance. The certification scheme shall review the re-certification audit report and the updated certificate of compliance, and make the re-certification audit report, in full or, where necessary to preserve the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information, in a summarised form, and the updated certificate of compliance publicly available in its certification registry or, once established, in the Union registry. The certification registry of the certification scheme or, once established, the Union registry shall issue certified units based on the updated certificate of compliance resulting from the re-certification audit. 4. The operator or group of operators shall support the certification body during the certification audit and re-certification audit, in particular by giving access to the premises of the activity and providing any data and documentation required by that certification body. 5. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts to set out the structure, format and technical details of the activity plan and of the monitoring plan referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, and of the certification audit and re-certification audit reports referred to in paragraphs 2 and 3 of this Article. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 17.