Swiss carbon removal company Climeworks AG said it has signed a 13-year direct air capture (DAC) agreement with global investment firm Partners Group to capture more than 7,000 metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it permanently underground.
The deal is part of Partners Group’s decarbonization program, announced last year, aimed at achieving net zero corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030.
The program will mostly focus on reducing the firm’s overall emissions, but it will also include removing residual emissions via capture and storage of atmospheric CO₂.
“The agreement with Climeworks reflects Partners Group’s focus on sustainability and its commitment to achieving positive stakeholder impact over the long term,” David Layton, Partner and CEO at Partners Group, said in a comment to the agreement.
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According to Christoph Gebald, co-CEO and co-founder of Climeworks, multi-year agreements like this one are crucial in order to scale up high-quality carbon removal to gigaton level by 2050.
“Partners Group’s commitment to high-quality carbon removals underlines the leading role of the financial services industry in this scale-up. As one of the global leaders in private markets, Partners Group sends a strong signal, which will hopefully inspire more companies to take action on carbon removal,” Gebald said.
With the deal, Partners Group will use a technological solution to help meet its net zero goal for the first time.
Last year, the firm co-led a fundraising round of CHF 600 million (approx. USD 668.4 million) in Climeworks on behalf of its clients.
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