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Our journey to gigaton scale

We’re on a journey to climate impact at scale and want to inspire 1 billion people to join us.

Jan and Christoph at Capricorn

The challenge ahead

Our mission is clear: to protect our planet and ensure a livable future for generations to come, the IPCC states that global warming must be limited to 1.5°C. To maximize our chances of achieving this, the world needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.  

So how do we get there? Well, emissions reductions are the absolute priority in this quest — we all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions. But to truly enable global net zero, we also need carbon dioxide removal solutions, such as direct air capture and storage (DAC+S), to neutralize our unavoidable and historic emissions. Critically, we need to remove billions of tons of CO₂ from the air by 2100 to keep global warming in check.  

That's why we’re on a journey to scale our DAC+S technology to gigaton capacity. 

Lead the race toward net zero with Climeworks

Climeworks – Fact sheet

Everything you need to know about Climeworks in one page: who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

Open the fact sheet

Climeworks' journey

Track our progress on our scale-up journey to gigaton.

2009
Climeworks logo

Milligrams: Climeworks is founded by Jan and Christoph, who capture CO₂ from the air under lab conditions at the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers (Prof. Steinfeld) of ETH Zurich.

2012
Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph gebald

Kilograms: We reached demonstration scale with the first demo prototype.

2014
Climeworks' collector in London

Tons: Climeworks’ first small-scale DAC plant, a modular CO₂ collector, begins operation.

2017
Capricorn in Hinwil - Climeworks' first direct air capture plant

Hundreds of tons: We launched the world’s first commercial DAC plant in Hinwil, Switzerland.

2021
Climeworkers in front of Orca

Thousands of tons: Orca, the world’s first and largest DAC+S plant, comes to life in Iceland.

2024
Tens of thousands of tons: Mammoth, Climeworks new and largest DAC+S plant, joins Orca in Iceland.

Tens of thousands of tons: Mammoth, Climeworks new and largest DAC+S plant, joins Orca in Iceland.

2030
Measurable

Megaton: Climeworks’ technology will be rolled out globally.

2040
measurable

Multi-megaton: our capacity will keep on increasing as we approach our goal.

2050
Measurable

Gigaton: Climeworks will achieve climate impact at scale.

How did this ambitious journey start?

Our two co-founders, Jan and Christoph, met on their first day of university at ETH Zurich and quickly became friends. Aside from their love of engineering, they both shared a passion for alpine sports and spent much time in the Swiss Alps. Here, they experienced the effects of climate change first-hand. Shocked by the retreat of the glaciers, they vowed to do everything they could to tackle climate change.   

Together, Jan and Christoph embarked on a journey toward a solution that would empower everyone to take climate action. As engineers at heart, they poured their efforts into working on a technology called direct air capture, a way to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air. As a result, Climeworks was founded in 2009 and is now the leader in direct air capture (DAC) technology. 

The road ahead is not an easy one

Climeworks' vision is to inspire 1 billion people to remove CO₂ from the air. Only together can we reach climate impact at scale.

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