A litre of biodiesel sitting in a tank is still, physically, a litre of biodiesel. If the paperwork behind it falls behind, the product itself is still there, still identifiable, still something a certification body can point to while the administration catches up. Biomethane doesn’t get that grace period. The moment it’s injected into the interconnected European gas grid, it becomes physically indistinguishable from every other molecule already flowing through that network. From that point on, the only thing separating a certified batch from an uncertified one is the documentation.
That single difference changes more than people expect. This article looks at what actually shifts when a compliance system has to handle biomethane: the extra feedstock layers behind a typical batch, the moment the physical claim disappears into the grid, and how ISCC, REDcert, 2BSvs, and Italy’s INS each handle that differently.
The moment the batch stops being physical
Under RED, the interconnected European gas network is treated as a single logistical facility for mass balancing purposes. Practically, that means biomethane injected anywhere in that network is mass balanced against the network as a whole, not against a specific pipeline segment or storage tank the way a liquid batch would be. Both ISCC and REDcert require registration in the EU Union Database before sustainability characteristics can even be attached to a gas consignment, because the database is doing a job that physical separation would otherwise do for a liquid product.
There’s a second document riding alongside the sustainability side. Injected biomethane typically needs a Guarantee of Origin as well as a Proof of Sustainability, and the two have to be paired: no GoO can be issued without a valid, corresponding PoS behind it. A liquid biofuel batch generally travels on one primary document. Biomethane travels on two, linked, and the link itself is something that must be actively maintained rather than assumed.
More feedstock lines than the average liquid batch
Liquid biofuel production is often single-feedstock, or close to it, for a given batch: one type of UCO, one type of tallow, one crop-based input. Anaerobic digestion rarely works that way. A single digester commonly co-digests several streams at once. Manure, agricultural residues, food waste, energy crops, each carrying a different GHG intensity, and each needing its own correctly allocated share of the digester’s output before any of it can back a claim.
Manure adds a wrinkle of its own. Several schemes apply a bonus to the GHG saving when manure is part of the feedstock mix, because using it avoids methane emissions that would have occurred anyway during untreated storage. 2BSvs, which runs a certification track specifically for biomethane, builds this manure bonus directly into its methodology. Claiming it correctly means the manure share of a co-digested batch must be tracked and verified separately from everything else going into the same digester, not folded into a single blended average.
The schemes don’t treat gas like liquid
None of the major schemes pretend biomethane is just biofuel in a different physical state, and each has built specific mechanics around it:
- ISCC and REDcert both apply the single-balancing-area logic described above, with mandatory Union Database registration for gas consignments and the PoS/GoO pairing requirement for anything injected into the grid.
- 2BSvs runs a dedicated biomethane certification covering the full chain from feedstock collection through to biomethane production, with its own manure-bonus provision built into the methodology rather than bolted on.
- Italy’s INS brought biomethane plants fully into scope from 1 January 2026, following the wider reform that replaced the country’s 2019 sustainability certification regime in August 2024. Anaerobic digestion runs on a lot period of one to six months, materially more diffuse therefore adding another layer of complexity to an already complex process, which entails a different reporting rhythm, not just the paperwork inside it.
The net effect is that a company handling biomethane alongside liquid biofuels isn’t running one compliance process with a gas-shaped exception. It’s running several sets of mechanics that overlap in places and diverge in others, and the overlap is exactly where things get missed.
Where FuelFWD fits
FuelFWD doesn’t decide a plant’s feedstock mix or how a digester is operated, that’s an operational and commercial call that belongs entirely with the operator. What the platform handles is the documentation layer around it:
- Mass balance across feedstock streams. Positions are tracked in real time, which gains even more value for a co-digested batch, since there’s more than one stream to keep straight.
- Incoming documentation, any template. Supplier PoS and related certificates are read and validated as they arrive, regardless of the format they’re issued in.
- Certificate validity checks. Certificates behind a position are checked for validity on an ongoing basis, not just at the point a document is first filed away.
- Audit-ready export. The record behind any position, gas or liquid, exports as a complete evidence trail when it’s needed.
- Scheme coverage that includes biomethane-relevant regimes. ISCC, REDcert, 2BSvs, and Italy’s INS are all supported on the platform, along with registry submission for Nabisy.
Want to see how FuelFWD handles biomethane and biomethane documentation end to end, from feedstock intake through to registry submission? Book a Demo at fuelfwd.io