Business
Climate
Durham
Energy
Enviroment
Enviromental
Environment
Food & Drink
Hospitality
Newcastle
North East
North East News
Northumberland
Peterlee
Sunderland
Technology
Teesside
- Climeworks is excited to take its collaboration with Microsoft to the next level: following its selection as part of Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio last year, the two companies have now closed a new carbon removal offtake agreement.
- With a period of 10 years, it is the first multi-year purchase agreement that Microsoft has signed with a carbon removal supplier. Such long-term commitments are crucial to help scale the carbon removal industry as it provides planning security to both sides and accelerates mainstream adoption.
- Especially in the case of direct air capture (DAC), multi-year commitments help foster long-term financing efforts and therefore support both the scale-up of the technology, and the whole ecosystem behind it.
In 2020, Microsoft announced its pioneering commitment to be carbon negative by 2030 and remove all of its historic CO2 emissions by 2050. One year later, Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal was the only DAC solution selected by Microsoft for its first carbon removal portfolio, after successfully passing an extensive review process.
Now, Climeworks is proud to take its collaboration with Microsoft one step further by becoming its first long-term carbon removal supplier.
The two companies signed a 10-year carbon removal offtake agreement, where Climeworks will permanently remove 10’000 tons of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere on Microsoft’s behalf. This second and forward-looking commitment is one of the largest DAC agreements ever signed and proof of Microsoft’s conviction of both Climeworks’ technology and ability to scale.
“We are thrilled to sign our second carbon removal contract with Microsoft and work together in the long run. Long-term commitments like this multi-year agreement are crucial for scaling the DAC industry because the guaranteed demand catalyzes financing of our infrastructure and consequently accelerates the development of the required ecosystem for scaling DAC”, says Christoph Gebald, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks.
“Microsoft’s multi-year offtake agreement with Climeworks is an important step towards realizing the ‘net’ in net zero,” said Microsoft Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa. “Our experience in purchasing renewable energy shows that long-term agreements can provide an essential foundation for society’s race to scale new decarbonization technologies. Paired with Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund investment in Climeworks’ direct air capture plant, this agreement with Climeworks can help kickstart the commercial and technical progress in a nascent but crucial industry to achieve IPCC targets.”
Direct air capture is key to mitigating climate change. The IPCC estimates that by mid-century, we will need to remove 3-12 billion tons of CO2 from the air every year in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Direct air capture and storage is expected to contribute a significant part, with a potential of removing up to 310 billion tons of CO2 by 2100 to limit global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot.
About Climeworks
Climeworks empowers people to reverse climate change by permanently removing carbon dioxide from the air.
One of two things happens to the Climeworks air-captured carbon dioxide: either it is returned to earth, stored safely and permanently away for millions of years, or it is upcycled into climate-friendly products such as carbon-neutral fuels and materials. The Climeworks direct air capture technology runs exclusively on clean energy, and the modular CO2 collectors can be stacked to build machines of any capacity.
Founded by engineers Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, Climeworks strives to inspire 1 billion people to act now and remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Together we can build a climate-positive world.
Web: https://www.climeworks.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Climeworks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/climeworks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/climeworks
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/climeworks