Launching Carbon Removers

When we launched Sourceful Climate in March 2021, I highlighted that carbon removal — removing CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently storing it — was critical to curbing climate change. And that carbon removal technology currently lacks the scale to deliver the required impact.

Unsurprisingly — only eight months on — this is still the case. In fact, since March, the IPCC has published its landmark AR6 report, echoing the urgent need for carbon removal technologies to hit international climate targets.

Thankfully, we’ve seen significant progress in the carbon removal ecosystem. New and ambitious carbon removal companies, such as Heirloom, have launched. Charm Industrial delivered the world’s largest carbon removal to date. New players have entered on all sides of the market, including Carbon Gap and Carbon Infinity. And we’re slowly seeing more rigorous approaches to carbon offsetting as more companies realise that not all offsets are created equally. At the same time, the facts remain:

1. We cannot deliver net zero with emission reductions alone: carbon removal is critical.
2. We have some truly promising technologies, but they are not yet at the scale we need.
3. We need to accelerate the growth of carbon removal technologies — we don’t have the time to wait.

This is why today, we launched carbon-removers.com with our friends at Eka Ventures: a public database of the companies accelerating carbon removal (and utilisation).

Carbon Removers: connecting pioneers and accelerating climate action

We know there is no single carbon removal technology that can deliver all the removals our planet needs. In reality, we need an ecosystem of carbon capture, storage, utilisation and offset players, that together deliver affordable carbon removal (and utilisation) at scale. Only then can we start to bring our planet’s atmosphere back into balance.

To create this ecosystem, however, several things need to happen:

1. Carbon capture, removal and utilisation tech companies need capital from investors and offset customers to scale their technology. And they need to find each other in order to complete the chain (for the CO2 to be stored, or utilised).
2. Offset customers need to find these projects to support.
3. Investors need to find the best companies to invest in.
4. NGOs need to partner with companies on research and system change.

Common to all of these objectives is access to other segments in the ecosystem. Without access, each segment remains isolated and can’t scale.

The first component of access is knowing who to approach and this is currently a blocker in the nascent carbon removal ecosystem. With lots of new technologies and companies entering and without established markets, standards or definitions, the ecosystem is fragmented and opaque. As the ecosystem grows, finding organisations could become even more challenging.

What if we were able to help companies find each other faster? What if we could accelerate the learning of new entrants, by giving them a complete view of the ecosystem?

Capture companies could find all CO2 utilisation and storage companies, not just a handful. Buyers would be able to assess all CDR offsets, not just those with marketing spend. Investors could meet and invest in more project founders, not just the ones that have come out of stealth.

With Carbon Removers, we’ve created a space where carbon capture/storage companies, buyers, utilisers, investors and NGOs can find each other. By doing so, we create more transparency, quicken the learning of new entrants and in turn, accelerate meaningful connections. We hope this will contribute to a faster delivery of carbon removal at scale.

Carbon Removers is a community

We want Carbon Removers to be a community. For it to become this though, we need people from all corners of the ecosystem to contribute. Here’s how you can help:

• Share the platform with colleagues, companies you work with, policymakers and more.
• Sign-up to keep a pulse on the ecosystem. We’ll share occasional updates on changes to the ecosystem.
• Recommend companies and projects you think should be on Carbon Removers. You can do this on the site here.
• Use it as a resource to learn about carbon removal, find new thought leaders and more.

We haven’t got time to wait — let’s go!

Thanks to Kris for helping write this piece and to Hamish at Eka for driving this initiative forward with us.

If you want to go deeper on carbon removal technologies, I recommend reading this short introduction to negative emissions technologies from Eka Ventures.