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Yesterday, the who's who of European carbon dioxide removal (hashtag#CDR) gathered by the banks of the Thames in London for a day of discussions, networking, and collaboration. The focus this year was fully on raising corporate ambitions, arguably the most important topic in CDR today
Here is what stood out to me from this amazing day:
💪 Leading by example: the highlight of the day was CDR veteran Mischa Repmann sharing a detailed case study of @swiss re. Companies should first set an internal carbon price ($100 going towards $200 by 2030 in their case) and then deploy the resulting capital to the highest impact projects through a mix of direct purchases, buyers clubs, and marketplaces. Bravo.
✅ Reducing friction: key building blocks are finally emerging that can streamline the purchase of CDR as Natalia Dorfman and Helen Bray highlighted. From standardised, comprehensive hashtag#contracts, to hashtag#insurance, to robust digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (hashtag#dMRV). All of this increases trust and reduces risk for buyers.
🚓 Pre-compliance markets: Philip Moss of NextGen CDR - one of the world’s leading CDR buying clubs - made a compelling case that there is no such thing as a voluntary carbon market (hashtag#VCM). Instead, corporates should see today as the pre-compliance market, with real compliance just being a matter of time.
👉 Common sense policy: buyers are looking to governments to provide clarity, particularly on certification and environmental claims. As Eli Mitchell-Larson of Carbon Gap eloquently put: "assume that common sense will prevail". This means focusing on durable, high-quality carbon removal and you will be ready for whatever is coming down the pipe.
🤝 Landmark deals: it was great to see a huge deal announced during the summit. Swiss Re will purchase 70,000 tonnes of biochar carbon removal (hashtag#BCR) from Carbonfuture provided by Exomad Green, one of my favourite CDR companies who have developed an incredibly impactful, circular model of removing carbon while supporting farmers and the Amazon rainforest.
👏 A big shout out to all speakers who attended and made this event the calibre it was: Andrea Klaric, Diego Justiniano, Emily Jackson-Kessler, Emma Parry, Helen Bray, Natalia Dorfman, Nikki Batchelor, as well as the CDR company pitches Duncan Kariuki, Chloé Bigio, Erik Rylander, Eva van der Want, Jan Cihlar, Lisa Braune, Tim Preisenhammer, and Tom Buchanan.
🙏 Finally, a special shout out to the organisers Carbonfuture, hosts Hannes Junginger, Leila Toplic, Dominic Lüdin and the one and only Theresa Rößler who pulled off one of the smoothest conferences I have ever seen 👏 👏 👏
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