🇨🇭 💶 What do buyers of CDR really think? Insights from the inaugural Nextgen Annual Summit in Zurich 💶🇨🇭

Yesterday, I attended NextGen CDR Facility´s first annual summit in Zurich, Switzerland. As one of the leading buyers clubs for carbon dioxide removal (#CDR), I was particularly excited about this event. At most CDR events, buyers usually constitute 5% or less of attendees. At this event, it was the majority of attendees!

💡 Here my key takeaways:

⚖ Finding the right portfolio: buyers want the highest quality, durable CDR, but cannot afford to buy in large volumes at current prices. The need for a blended portfolio emerged clearly, including lower-cost options like biochar carbon removal (#BCR) to achieve an average of around $200/ton.

💸 Leveraging internal carbon prices: one of the key first steps for many leading buyers was/is to set an internal price on the use of carbon. It provides the capital to purchase CDR while incentivising the right behaviours across the company.

🚨It is all about reputational risk: While everyone knows that durable CDR is the solution, not the problem, buyers are afraid of public perception. Commercial and technological risk lags far behind compared to potential reputational risk.

🔄 Commodification, now: deals currently take 6-12 months and are extremely costly. What we need is a liquid, commodified market with much lower transaction costs. Getting there will take a long time, however.

⏱The Science Based Targets initiative: everyone recognised the crucial role SBTi has played in driving corporate commitments. However, it has become a major roadblock in driving CDR purchases, given current guidelines are insufficient. A clear stance on CDR is long-overdue and hopefully coming soon.

🌟 Overall, I have been very impressed with this conference. Seeing so many buyers get together was inspiring. The task ahead remains huge, but I feel more confident than ever that we can get the next wave of buyers into the ecosystem and keep driving the rapid growth of the market: let´s go from 20 large buyers (>10k tons of durable CDR) to at least 40 in 2024!

👏A huge thanks to the organisers at NextGen CDR Facility, first and foremost host and impeccable MC Philip Moss, alongside his colleagues Megan Kemp, Matthew Le Flocq, and Krishnan Kartick. It was a fantastic event. And a shout out to all the speakers and attendees who generously shared their insights with me: Jonas Loetscher, Antoine (Toni) Habersetzer, Jeremiah Lim, CFA, Julia Bläsius, Dominic Lüdin, Kevin Tidwell, Natalia Dorfman, Benjamin Tincq, Marian Krueger, Glenn Morley, Delia Meth-Cohn, Veronika Elgart, Daniel Gasche, Noah Deich, Fabien Ramos, Bas Sudmeijer, and Ursula Finsterwald.

Whether you attended or not, what are your thoughts on the topics above? Do they resonate? 🤔💬