A new report released by CDR.fyi shows that direct air capture (DAC) technology has experienced twice as many sales in H1 of 2025 as it did in the same period during 2024.
Going further back in time, the analysis identified a slight decline for DAC technology, evident in the volumes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) purchased over the past two years.
In 2023, DAC peaked with 1 million tonnes contracted in purchases, followed by 841K tonnes in 2024. In contrast, data from H1 of 2025 showed that DAC purchases reached only 158K tonnes.
Still, with the H1 increase of this year, the CDR.fyi report notes that DAC technology seems to be progressing from early momentum into steady build-out.
To date, 2.47 million tonnes of DAC credits have been contracted, accounting for ~8% of all contracted durable CDR so far. Out of this contracted volume, only 0.05%, or 1,186 tonnes, have been delivered by mid-2025.
The top three suppliers with the most DAC carbon credit sales are 1PointFive, Climeworks, and Heirloom. These three companies account for 80% of all the DAC credits sold on the market, with Climeworks emerging as the leader in deliveries, responsible for 81% of all DAC tonnes delivered so far.
A comparison between Global North and Global South DAC suppliers showed that the North dominates in sales, while Kenya-based Octavia Carbon is the only DAC supplier in the Global South to have contracted credits.
This worldwide overview also showed that the United Kingdom has 42% of unique purchasers but only 0.11% of total tonnes purchased.
On the buyer side, Microsoft spearheads the chart with 833K tonnes of DAC CDR purchased so far, followed by Airbus, whose purchases total 400K tonnes. The Frontier advance market commitment has made the most diverse purchases, investing in DAC from a range of 12 suppliers.
Relevant: DACLab Launches Kelvin – A New DAC System Stated To Be The Most Cost-Efficient So Far
In terms of sectors, the software industry is the one most actively purchasing DAC CDR (38%), followed by the transport sector (17%) and entertainment industry (14%).
Between 2021 and H1 of 2025, more than $2.3 billion of private investment (not counting grant funding and M&A) has been funneled into DAC companies, with deal sizes steadily dropping in 2025.
While this decarbonization technology has experienced rapid growth, deployments are currently being delayed by almost every company.
The CDR.fyi report, available here, provides many more insightful details on DAC’s role in durable CDR, delving into segments like sales, deliveries, investment, purchaser patterns, geography, technology, pricing, and pending questions related to scaling.
Read more: New Study Looks Into The Role Of DAC Technology In Sustainable Aviation
