Mass balance or book-and-claim: the difference decides your claim

Two systems, two very different legal weights — and they are constantly confused. Only one of them holds up in EU compliance.

Regulation & compliance
Biomethane market, ISCC

Two systems, two very different legal weights, and they are constantly confused.

Book-and-claim decouples the certificate from the gas entirely. Useful for voluntary claims, accepted nowhere in EU compliance. Mass balance keeps a documented link between what was injected and what you claim, tracked through every change of custody across the grid. Under RED II it is the method EU compliance regimes accept, and ISCC EU 203-02 sets out exactly how it has to be run.

In practice, that means the chain matters more than the source. A volume produced at an impeccable plant loses its status the moment one custody transfer goes undocumented — and nobody notices until an audit.

So the question to put to a supplier isn’t where the gas comes from. It is who held it, in what order, and whether every step is evidenced.

bGX delivers biomethane with the chain of custody assembled and auditable.

Read the full guide: mass balance and chain of custody

Also written by
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FuelEU Maritime is in force. Bio-LNG is the shortest path to compliance
Switzerland runs on its own rules — and imports most of its renewable gas
Certified biomethane counts as zero under the EU ETS — here’s the catch
Germany’s BEHG: what fuel suppliers actually have to prove

Want to know what’s available in your market?

Our team sources certified biomethane across European producers and structures the delivery — mass balance, Guarantees of Origin, Proof of Sustainability. We handle the complexities. You get the results.

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