Amazon, Google, Microsoft and H&M are all investing in sustainable CDR. An H&M spokesperson described the fast-fashion company’s purchase of 10,000 tonnes of sustainable CDR from Swiss company Climeworks, one of its largest purchases to date, and said H&M plans to use it to offset any remaining emissions. The tech companies confirmed their commitment to first reduce emissions and then use carbon sequestration to offset any remaining emissions, though none of them addressed the Newclimate Institute’s concerns that they would use large quantities of sustainable and indivisible CDR to claim progress towards net zero.
The statement provided to Grist by Total Energy was not reviewed by CDR. Instead, it described the company’s support for carbon capture and storage and “nature-based solutions.” The latter refers to short-term offsets, such as tree planting, that the Newclimate Institute does not consider adequate to offset fossil fuel emissions.
Apple, Duke Energy and Shein declined to comment after seeing the report. The remaining 24 companies did not respond to GRIST’s requests for comment.
Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan and dean of its School of Environment and Sustainability, said the Newclimate Institute report is timely. “Right now, the whole idea of CDR … is kind of a wild west scene, with a lot of actors promising to do things that may or may not be possible,” he said. He added that companies appear to be using CDR as an alternative to mitigating their climate impacts.
“The priority should be on reducing emissions, not on a durable CDR,” he told Grist.
In the near term, sustainable CDR does virtually nothing to offset emissions. Only 0.0023 gigatons of CO2 were removed from the atmosphere each year using these methods as of 2023. That’s about 15,000 times less than the annual amount of climate pollution from fossil fuel and cement production.
According to the Newclimate Institute, voluntary initiatives are not a substitute for government-mandated emissions reduction targets and investments in resilient CDR. To the extent that these initiatives exist, however, the organization says they should provide a clearer definition of what constitutes “resilient” carbon removal; set companies’ accountability for increasing resilient CDR based on their ongoing and historical emissions, or perhaps more realistically, their ability to pay; and require companies to set separate targets for emissions reductions and supporting resilient CDR. The latter recommendation is intended to reinforce a hierarchy of climate action that prioritizes mitigation before offsetting. Companies should not “hide inaction on decarbonization behind investment in displacement,” as the report puts it.
Mooldijk said voluntary initiatives could incentivize investment in sustainable CDR by recognizing “climate contributions.” These could take the form of simple announcements of companies’ monetary contributions to sustainable CDR, rather than requirements for the amount of CO2 they have theoretically neutralized.
Some of these recommendations were submitted earlier this year to the Science-Based Targets Initiative, the most respected private sector climate goal review. The organization is preparing to update its Corporate Net Zero standard with new guidance on the use of CDR. Another standard-setter—the International Organization for Standardization—is similarly preparing to release new Net Zero standards that could reduce some of the more questionable corporate climate claims while also drumming up support for robust CDR.
John Reilly, a senior lecturer emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said that ultimately proper regulation of corporate climate commitments, including robust CDR, will fall to governments. Companies are “happy to throw a little money at these things,” he said, “but I don’t think voluntary guidelines will ever get you there.”
