Boston Consulting Group (BCG) announced today a purchase agreement with Direct Air Capture (DAC) company CarbonCapture for 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits over a span of five years, marking one of the largest announced DAC offtake deals to date, and the largest yet in the professional services industry globally.

DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to last year’s IPCC climate change mitigation study, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.

The new agreement follows the announced launch in September 2022 by CarbonCapture of “Project Bison,” a new DAC project in Wyoming, aimed at permanently removing and storing five million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, in partnership with carbon storage developer Frontier Carbon Solutions. The project is expected to be operational by late 2023, and to be developed over multiple phases through 2030, reaching 5 million tons of capture and storage annual capacity.

The agreement also includes an intention for BCG to provide management consulting services to support CarbonCapture’s business strategy.

Adrian Corless, CarbonCapture’s CEO and CTO, said:

“We’re extremely pleased to be working closely with BCG. They’re not only providing exceptional thought leadership in the sustainability and carbon removal space, they’ve also stepped up and shown their commitment to the DAC industry by making a major purchase of carbon removal credits.”

According to BCG, the carbon removal agreement will support the firm’s commitment to achieve net zero climate impact by 2030. BCG initially announced its net zero goal in 2020, alongside a goal to become climate positive beyond 2030, and outlining plans to significantly reduce its carbon footprint, and to offset the remainder of its emissions through investments in carbon removal projects and technologies. BCG also said at the time that it will work collaboratively with leading organizations around the world in developing and deploying the most advanced removal approaches.

David Webb, BCG’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said:

“Carbon dioxide removal is critical to achieve net zero emissions globally, and DAC is a very promising technology. Rapid innovation and scaling are needed to help reach its future potential. This requires early investment and long-term corporate commitments today. BCG is committed to this effort, and we are pleased to partner with CarbonCapture to make it happen.”