NextGen CDR Facility (NextGen) – a joint venture between South Pole and Mitsubishi Corporation established in 2022, announced on April 26th its first advanced carbon dioxide removals purchase of 193,125 metric tons from high-quality carbon removal projects. The purchase encompasses the world’s largest diversified portfolio of CDRs offering 1000+ years of CO2 storage once delivered.
NextGen CDR Facility was launched by South Pole and Mitsubishi Corporation with founding buyers Boston Consulting Group, LGT, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Swiss Re, and UBS with the goal of catalyzing the market for high-quality carbon removals. The joint venture plans to purchase over 1 million metric tons of verified carbon dioxide removals (CDRs) by 2025, with the verified credits to be delivered by 2030.
Now, the initiative is taking its first step towards the completion of this goal. The announced advance purchase of carbon removals will be registered under ICROA-endorsed certification standards to ensure the projects are of the highest environmental integrity and benefit local communities.
The purchase includes CDR approaches like direct air capture and storage (DACS), carbon capture and storage, and biochar that provide long-term permanently sequestered CO2. The selected projects are as follows:
- The direct air capture and storage project developed by 1PointFive in Texas, expected to remove and permanently store up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year once fully operational.
- Summit Carbon Solutions’ carbon capture and storage mega project which involves the capture and permanent storage of carbon emissions from ethanol plants, removing 9 million metric tons of CO2 annually.
- Carbo Culture’s high-tech biochar project in Finland, planned to produce high-quality biochar to remove and durably store 2.5 million metric tons of CDRs by 2030. The company’s approach involves producing biochar at very high temperatures to maximize the carbon removal capacity, achieving 1000+ years of permanence.
“NextGen’s ambition to scale the market has taken a major step forward following these initial CDR purchases and puts us on a clear pathway to realize our target of 1M durably stored metric tons of CO2 by 2025. Not only will these advance purchases establish a quality standard by ensuring independent certification of technological carbon removals, these commitments from our buyers will unlock financing for many emerging CDR projects and technologies…,” comments Philip Moss, Chairman of NextGen and Global Director, Tech Carbon Removals, at South Pole.
Relevant: South Pole Faces Accusations Due To Exaggerated Carbon Offsets Claims – Bloomberg
The commitment of 193,125 metric tons of carbon removals also represents 25% of all purchases to date, according to industry data source CDR.FYI. It is a major milestone in scaling the nascent industry and sends a strong market signal that corporations are very determined in creating a market for high-quality CDRs.
They are in big demand as they have the potential to help the world fulfill its climate goals and reduce access emissions already released in the atmosphere. Further details on the news and portfolio will be featured at the Carbon Unbound conference on May 11 in NYC.
Relevant: Frontier Issues Request For Proposals For Second Round Of Carbon Removal Purchases
