Well done. I already am climate-active, but you inspired me to step it up a notch!
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Our CDR portfolios include nature-based carbon removal like reforestation, protecting biodiversity, and storing carbon deep in soil. You'll see them grouped as Nature Based Solutions (NBS). Unlike engineered carbon removal technologies, a huge extra value with NBS are the high levels of co-benefits to natural ecosystems.
For our portfolios, we evaluate the best-in-class nature projects primarily for carbon removal permanence and additionality. If they don't pass those criteria, we don't include them. Then we also take into account the co-benefits such as biodiversity protection and restoration, climate justice and local community empowerment.
We only include the top 5 to 10% of nature-based projects for quality, based on our methodology.
How does it work?
The natural carbon cycle is everywhere. Land-based carbon sinks, like forests, already absorb large amounts of the excess carbon dioxide being released every year. Plants are organic CO2 filtering machines. They remove it from the air and store it for a period of time.
By thoughtfully supporting this natural process through high-quality reforestation, afforestation, soil sequestration - and avoiding further loss of established forest carbon sinks - it is possible to remove billions of tonnes of carbon and store it out of the atmosphere.
NBS should be considered as temporary carbon storage for up to around 100 years. Solutions also need to take into account increasing risk from climate change related events, like fires and droughts.
Why do we like it?
Land-based natural carbon sinks are hugely valuable and important in tackling climate change, as well as reversing the global decline in biodiversity. While they offer less permanent storage than other types of carbon removal, they are comparably easier to scale and are cost effective. Investing in them is critical to the long term health of humans and everything else that lives on the planet.
Effectively protecting and restoring the carbon sinks we already have is crucial to solving climate change. For more detail on how we choose solutions, check out our Carbon Removal Portfolio Methodology.
Treeconomy strives for a world where a tree in the ground is more valuable than a tree chopped down. Through remote sensing and research-backed methodologies, Treeconomy ensures that every carbon credit meets the highest standards of quality and transparency. They quantify and monitor inherently good projects that generate traceable and tangible carbon removal while delivering a wider range of ecosystem services, benefiting climate, biodiversity, and local communities.
We think Treeconomy shares our vision of a sustainable future, one based on trust and transparency, and that how we get there is by doing things the right way, based in science. Read more about Treeconomy.
We're delighted to be working with Earthly to discover the best-in-class nature-based carbon removals. From their UK base, their experienced team work globally to find projects that remove carbon, restore nature and support local communities. They've developed their own 106-point screening system to evaluate the impact of each project from carbon, biodiversity and people perspectives. We've long been a fan of their approach as they only work with high-integrity, data-rich established and innovative nature projects. Read more about Earthly.
Learn more by clicking on a partner to discover how the solution works and their company's progress.
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We love questions! We want you to feel 100% comfortable and excited about joining our Carbon Removal Portfolio. It's something we wished existed but couldn't find, so we made it!
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is anything that pulls planet-heating carbon dixoide out of the air and stores it safely for a period of time. The longer the better.
It's a range of solutions that include various Nature-based, some tech-enabled or nature-inspired and fully engineered approaches and technologies. For example:
Forests and oceans are crucial natural carbon sinks which already draw down and lock away huge amounts of emissions. They'll be a part of the solution, but likely only about 20-30% of the removal we need.
On the more technological and engineered side, you might have heard about things like Direct Air Capture, Bio-oil, Biochar or Enhanced Weathering or Ocean Blue Carbon. These approaches, and others being worked on, are going to be need to fill the gap.
Go deeper into the different types of carbon removal.
Our CDR portfolio is a blend of different carbon removal solutions, mixed together to make it an affordable cost per tonne. Here's more info.
We believe this approach is ideal, based on the science-backed pathways to support growing the global carbon removal capacity to gigatonnes per year.
Combined with large scale global decarbonization, we need to reach about 10 billion tonnes of annual removal by 2050. There is no silver bullet solution and no one category or company will be big enough, which is why we take a portfolio approach to invest in a range of approaches.
Following the science-backed approach to Net Zero we advocate for 90% emissions reductions and decarbonization from current levels (about 50 gigatonnes of CO2e per year). Then using high permanence removals for the 10% hard-to-reduce remaining emissions.
Our angle on CDR is that even for that 10% it's a huge lift from where we are. Investing and growing the industry now is crucial.
If our goal is to build up the carbon removal industry to be the size we'll need by 2050 it needs to grow about 40%+ every year. It's not something that we can switch on overnight, it's something we'll have to build-up over time.
Not so much. Offsetting has been traditionally used to counterbalance the continued release of emissions, which only adds to the challenge of slowing and then reversing the increase in global average temperatures.
The vast majority (cough - 95% - cough) of offsets available don't remove carbon. Some may be good projects and have other societal benefits that aren't primarily about removing the gigatonnes of harmful gases we humans have pumped out.
Where carbon removal is different is that the only reason many of the technologies exist is to take out and sequester carbon dioxide - from the air or elsewhere - for hundreds to thousands of years, so it can't contribute to the continued heating of the planet and all the impacts of that.
Carbon removal is what's called highly additional, meaning the primary reason it exists is to do exactly as its name suggests.
This said, carbon removal can be used to offset emissions, though this should be only as part of a concerted effort to reduce as large a chunk of emissions as possible. It can also be used to remove older emissions that happened in the past.
We think that now is the time to fund and invest in carbon removal. Even if it is still more expensive than traditional offsets and it's not always viable to buy the same tonnes, it works in the way we need by literally removing the carbon dioxide so it can't contribute to climate change.
Find out more about Avoidance Offsets and the Voluntary Carbon Market.
There are a whole range of reasons. To us, some of the most compelling are:
- So the industry reaches about 10 billion tonnes of capacity by 2050 - the "net" bit of Net Zero
- The ratio of carbon removal in the Voluntary Carbon Markets needs to increase (compared to other approaches like avoidance or reduction)
- No one carbon removal type or company is going to be big enough on its own, we need a range of solutions and providers
- When combined with reducing emissions from everything we do, carbon removal will be a key tool to slow and then reverse climate change
- Funding and investing in it now helps to reduce the cost per tonne it takes to remove the carbon. Decreasing the cost by increasing demand will support the growth in supply of high-quality carbon removal options and capacity volume.
More on why we should invest in carbon removal now.
Our ready-made, curated, portfolio of high quality carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions is live. It aims for the highest permanence-for-the-$-per-tonne that we can find.
We're excited to be working with an inspiring group of global CDR companies taking the fight to the Climate Crisis. They're doing amazing work that holds a tonne - pun intended - of promise.
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