Microsoft, carbon capture technology company Aker Carbon Capture and carbon removal project developer CO280 announced the launch of a new collaboration aimed at scaling up the carbon removal market across the full value chain, from physical project development to digital measurement, tracking, verification and reporting.

According to the landmark 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (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.

The report also noted, however, that while there are multiple existing solutions to capture and store CO2, most are early stage and currently limited in scale. Additionally, carbon offsetting through projects such as carbon removal faces quality and verification challenges, with participants often unable to differentiate between high and low quality projects with insufficient or inconsistent data to assess and track the effectiveness of projects.

Egil Fagerland, CEO of Aker Carbon Capture, said:

“It’s time to move past the first-of-a-kind and the demonstration projects for carbon removal. The deployment rate needs to be accelerated by the hundreds to deliver the ‘net’ in net zero. We have demonstrated the strength of working together in the past, and we are excited to expand our collaboration with Microsoft and CO280 to further deliver impact.”

Spun out of energy services company Aker Solutions in 2020, Norway-based Aker Carbon Capture (ACC) offers proprietary carbon capture technology to reduce and remove CO2 emissions from industrial plants, which can be applied to existing or new build facilities. The company’s solution uses a mixture of water and organic amine solvents to absorb CO2, which can be applied to a broad range of sectors, including gas, coal, cement, refineries, bio- and waste-to-energy and hydrogen. Energy services company SLB announced last month an agreement to acquire a majority stake in ACC.

Vancouver-based CO280 develops biomass carbon removal and storage projects in the pulp and paper industry, including financing, developing, owning and operating large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) projects in partnership with pulp and paper companies, with more than 10 million tons per year of permanent CDR under development. According to the companies, North America’s pulp and paper industry represents a carbon removal opportunity of up to 130 million tons per year, with the average mill having a CO2 emissions profile that is 80% – 90% biogenic.

Under the new collaboration, Microsoft, Aker and CO280 will explore the development of carbon capture projects in the U.S. and Canada, including those in CO280’s development pipeline, as well as others, the joint development of a standard and efficient screening process to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of carbon capture on pulp and paper mills, the standardization of lifecycle assessment and measurement, verification and reporting (MRV) systems for capture projects in pulp and paper, and the creation of a digital tool to compare CO280’s planned projects against Microsoft Criteria for High Quality Carbon Removal.

The companies also said that they will advocate for policies, and demonstrate thought leadership to promote the pulp and paper carbon capture market, including the creation and use of high-integrity carbon removals.

Jonathan Rhone, Chief Executive Officer of CO280, said:

“This commitment on the part of three best-in-class companies is exactly the kind of bold move the industry needs to unlock the enormous removal opportunity in the pulp and paper industry and scale up the CDR market. Together, we are developing the largest scale, lowest cost, permanent carbon removal projects in the world.”

The new partnership marks the latest in a series of announcements by Microsoft to support and participate in the carbon removal market, with the company revealing a several carbon removal deals over the past few months, spanning a broad range of CDR technologies, and forming part of Microsoft’s initiative to become carbon negative by 2030. Microsoft added that it is “committed to creating a robust market for CDRs, including by building a digital value chain that authoritatively tracks carbon attributes and generates robust credits as simply as possible.”

Darryl Willis, Corporate Vice President of Energy and Resources Industry at Microsoft, said:

“Our collaboration with Aker Carbon Capture and CO280 builds on important large-scale initiatives across asset-intensive industries including pulp and paper. By leveraging the power of technology to create a digital value chain for carbon tracking and reporting, we can equip the market for high-integrity carbon removal credits and further enable the industrial sector to decarbonize.”