Brilliant Planet, a leading provider of nature-based carbon removal solutions, announced Tuesday its first large-scale purchase, which was made by global fintech company Block Inc. (NYSE: SQ) and facilitated through the exclusive marketplace of enterprise climate platform Watershed.
The deal means that Brilliant Planet will remove, on behalf of Block, a total of 1,500 tons of carbon by 2027 at its planned demonstration facility in Morocco, for which construction is scheduled to begin in Q2 2024.
Once operations start later that year, the company plans to increase the carbon removal capacity at the facility to 1 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year by 2030.
Relevant: Brilliant Planet Partners With WSP On Ground-breaking Carbon Capture Project In Morocco
According to Brilliant Planet’s CEO, Adam Taylor, early contracts like the one with Block are “important in the development of the high-integrity carbon removal sector and demonstrate to like-minded firms that solutions are actionable today”.
The carbon removal purchase is part of Block’s corporate sustainability program aimed at making the company’s operations carbon neutral by 2030.
Brilliant Planet’s carbon removal technology is based on growing local strains of marine algae on land in coastal desert areas, after which algae biomass is harvested, rapidly solar dried and then buried underground on site.
Source: Brilliant Planet
According to the company, this technology ensures that sequestered carbon is easily verifiable and stable for over 1,000 years. Furthermore, it uses only upwelled ocean water as a nutrient source and sunlight as energy, which guarantees exceptional productivity of year-round algae blooms, allowing the capture of 30 times more carbon per year than an equivalent area of forest.
Before its pilot project in Southern Morocco, which is ongoing since 2018, Brilliant Planet has also operated sites in South Africa (2013) and Oman (2014).
Read more: Brilliant Planet To Work With Mott MacDonald On Algae Carbon Removal Facility In Morocco
