In addition to emissions reduction efforts, which prevent new CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, climate scientists agree that removing CO₂ emissions is crucial to reach net zero no later than 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5°C. This requires restoring a healthy balance of CO₂ in the atmosphere: emissions must be reduced to zero. All emissions that cannot yet be reduced have to be removed with carbon dioxide removal.
Carbon dioxide removal is more than just preventing additional CO₂ from entering the atmosphere. In contrast to offsets, where others are paid to reduce their emissions on behalf of another party that continues emitting, or carbon capture and storage (CCS), where CO₂ is captured from point sources, direct air capture and storage actively removes CO₂ from the air and thus produces negative emissions.
Operational: Orca, the world's largest direct air capture and storage plant.
The urgency of this task is undoubted, and businesses, now more than ever, are playing their part by committing and implementing ambitious climate targets. To achieve your business' climate targets and minimize your business carbon footprint, two things should be considered:
In order to get to net zero, the first and most efficient thing to do remains reducing carbon emissions. This can be achieved through a dedicated carbon reduction strategy. However, there will likely be residual carbon emissions that are considered as unavoidable. It is for these unavoidable carbon emissions, that your company needs a carbon removal strategy to reach net zero. With Climeworks, you can have your company's past and present CO₂ emissions removed from the air as a service. Climeworks is the first company operating commercial direct air capture and storage facilities. Our new direct air capture and storage plant Orca demonstrates further scale-up of our technology. Our pioneering customers already implementing carbon removal from Climeworks in their strategy have enabled Orca.
Climeworks' direct air capture technology combined with permanent storage removes historic and residual emissions from the air. When compared to other carbon dioxide removal solutions, nature-based or technical, Climeworks' technology provides a unique solution that is:
Know precisely how much CO₂ is captured and stored. Climeworks accounts for the own process-related CO₂ emissions and offers net carbon dioxide removal to customers.
Have CO₂ removed from air and stored permanently. The mineralization process is scientifically proven to be safe with no negative impacts on the ecosystem.
Use a highly scalable solution, thanks to a modular plant design, working at low-temperature heat and with minimal land-usage footprint.
Since time is critical, use a solution that removes one ton of CO₂ very rapidly from air.
By choosing Climeworks' carbon dioxide removal services, customers can define the amount of CO₂ emissions to be removed from the air and stored permanently. A carbon dioxide removal confirmation and delivery note will be provided to the customers stating the exact amount of carbon dioxide that has been removed in your name, as well as information on when and where it was captured and stored.
Climeworks explicitly accounts for its own process-related CO₂ emissions and offers net carbon dioxide removal to customers. Climeworks carbon dioxide removal customers have the possibility to purchase once or to engage in a longer-term contract. One-time purchases enable big flexibility whereas multi-year agreements unlock planning security and reserve capacity.
LGT, the world’s largest family-owned private banking and asset management group, has signed a ten-year carbon removal agreement with Climeworks to remove 9’000 tons of CO₂ from the air – the largest-ever direct air capture agreement signed by a bank. LGT’s purchase is the third ten-year agreement for Climeworks within just 5 months, showing that the long-term demand for high-quality carbon removal, such as Climeworks’ direct air capture and storage, is strongly increasing.
In September 2020, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) announced a bold new commitment to achieve net-zero climate impact by 2030 and, from there, to become climate positive, removing more carbon from the atmosphere than they annually emit. BCG has now signed a 10-year agreement with Climeworks, which will remove part of BCG’s unavoidable CO₂ emissions and is thus an important part of the company’s net-zero strategy.
The leading re-insurance company Swiss Re is walking the talk after committing in 2019 to net-zero operational emissions by 2030. Following their guiding principle “do our best, remove the rest” they committed to the world’s first and largest 10-year purchase agreement for direct air capture and storage of carbon dioxide worth 10 million USD with Climeworks. It is signalling once again that scalable solutions like Climeworks’ technology are crutial to reach the Paris Agreement climate targets.
Microsoft’s commitments are a core example of businesses taking climate action: negative emissions by 2030, removal of all historic emissions by 2050. To achieve these goals, Microsoft selected a portfolio of promising negative emissions technologies available today to remove their emissions on top of reducing their emissions. Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal has been selected in Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio, after successfully passing an extensive application process.
Microsoft's Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa and our co-CEO and co-founder Christoph Gebald came together to discuss why it's so important to start now with carbon dioxide removal - businesses and for the earth.