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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, will join Orca in Iceland.

Tens of thousands of tons: Mammoth, Climeworks new and largest DAC+S plant, will join 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. 

Jan and Christoph on Climeworks' HQ rooftop

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.

Monthly industry updates from Climeworks

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