Opinions on CO₂ removal (CDR) have varied over the years. For some, it’s considered a distraction away from critical energy transition and deep decarbonisation efforts. For others, an excuse for oil and gas companies to continue with business as usual.

But the fact is, next to massively reducing emissions, we also must remove CO₂ from the atmosphere – around 10tn t/y, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underlines. CDR is a crucial piece of the net zero puzzle, particularly to counteract the remaining hard-to-abate emissions after reducing as much as possible.

However, questions hang over the ability of some solutions to scale up operations to a truly effective level in the next five years, as well as to accurately measure their impact. Can CDR deliver durable, trusted impact at the colossal scale required?

While there are companies out there promising to remove gigatonnes of CO₂ by mid-century, these ambitions need to be supported and work in parallel with proven technology able to remove CO₂ now.

State of the market 
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) asserts that after a company has achieved its long-term target and cut emissions by more than 90%, it must use permanent carbon removal to counterbalance the final 10% of residual emissions that cannot be eliminated.

Major players in both the technology and financial sectors, such as Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, UBS and J P Morgan, are taking pioneering roles in the development of the CDR market as part of their corporate 2030 climate strategies.

Other sectors are also participating, albeit not at the same scale currently. We need to see many more companies investing in CDR today to counteract their hard-to-abate emissions. Wait-and-see is not an option. On the one hand, the supply will be limited with more and more organisations setting up stringent net zero targets. On the other hand, we need investment now to scale the industry to the very high volume needed.

Next to the voluntary market, regulatory support also plays a crucial role in scaling up the CDR market. From public procurement schemes, to subsidies, to increasing compliance, we see a lot of promising development in the public realm geared toward prompting large-scale carbon removal impact.

But regulation is often not cross-border and takes time to draw up, roll out and create impact. The European Union’s recent initiatives, such as the ‘Fit for 55’ package aimed at removing 310mn tCO₂e (55%) by 2030, are not on track. Policies have so far focused on activities related to the use and management of land and forests, which naturally absorb and capture carbon. But, despite this focus, carbon removals via natural systems have slowed down in recent years, while the market for industrial carbon removal is not yet fully developed.

However, the tide is turning. In February, the European Parliament and Council announced a provisional agreement for a new regulation that will establish a quantification, monitoring, and verification framework specifically for carbon removals. The rest of the world will likely follow suit, with the Carbon Removal Certification Framework on track to become the gold standard globally.

Removal technology options
Afforestation still currently accounts for over 95% of CDR in terms of real CO₂ volume removed. While it is somewhat scalable and has clear biodiversity benefits, it has limited permanence and storage capacity.

Technological solutions such as direct air capture (DAC) are promising for large-scale impact, but still unproven. There are also questions around how the CO₂ will be stored, with geological storage facilities not yet up to scale. Biochar (produced by the pyrolysis of biomass) offers durability, due to its stable structure, and it is a technology that captures CO₂ today. However, there are doubts about its scalability.

Product mineralisation – where CO₂ from atmospheric or biogenic sources is stored in long-lived materials – is a lesser-known solution that has many merits, from making an impact now to scalability and financial viability.

Whether underground or in mineral waste streams, mineralisation is the most durable form of carbon removal known to date, able to store CO₂ for thousands to millions of years with negligible risks of reversal.

One CDR solution alone cannot deliver the gigatonne impact we need every year. We need to test, deploy, adapt and measure solutions, with the goal of finding various ones that will prove to be commercially and ecologically viable at scale in the next years.

The European Parliament and Council have announced a provisional agreement for a new regulation that will establish a quantification, monitoring and verification framework specifically for carbon removals.

Mineralisation 
Neustark, the company I co-founded four years ago in Switzerland (alongside Johannes Tiefenthaler) has built an end-to-end carbon removal solution. By capturing CO₂ from sources such as biogas plants, the model enables these businesses to valorise a challenging waste stream. This CO₂ is then transported to construction material recyclers, where it is injected into mineral waste such as demolished concrete granules, incinerated bottom ashes or slag. This triggers a process of accelerated mineralisation, turning the CO₂ into limestone and binding it permanently to the granules’ pores and surface.

Every tonne of CO₂ captured, stored and net removed is closely monitored, reported and verified (MRV) by an external agency. The impact is then sold as Gold Standard-accredited CDR credits to corporate customers with ambitious net zero goals, including Microsoft and UBS.

By controlling the whole process, from source to certification, we have built a transparent and robust digital MRV process with data readily available to customers.

Initially, the business is focused on mineralisation within demolition concrete, specifically using the world’s single largest waste stream as a carbon sink. The carbon removal solution comes with the additional benefits of trackable impact, a circular economy model and advantages for the wider supply chain. However, the model can be replicated across other use cases, including other mineral waste materials and geological storage.

With 18 storage sites already in operation across Europe and 1,500 tonnes of CO₂ removed to date, the business has proven its ability to deliver high-quality, highly durable carbon removal that is both scalable and measurable.

Looking to the future 
This year will see rapid expansion across Europe, with over 35 new plants currently under construction.

With required CDR volumes potentially in the trillions of tonnes in this century alone, it’s clear that investing in highly scalable solutions that can make a certified impact now are a pressing matter.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author only and are not necessarily given or endorsed by or on behalf of the Energy Institute.

• Further reading: ‘Cometh the hour for carbon capture?’How recent funding for carbon capture projects in the US and UK might help develop this technology.
• Energy Institute research analyses the benefits and consequences of repurposing existing infrastructure for the energy transition, including carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS).