Carbon removal procurement playbook with U.S. Department of Energy, Bain & Company, and Charm Industrial

The U.S. government’s recently released Joint Policy Statement and Principles for High-Integrity Voluntary Carbon Markets proves the imperative for corporate sustainability leaders to integrate high-integrity carbon credits into a best-practice sustainability strategy. It’s a sea change for the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

But what hasn’t changed is the ever-evolving nature of the VCM — discovering, vetting, and ultimately procuring high-integrity credits is a complex process that demands deep understanding of policy, standards, science, and market conditions.

Sustainability leaders need to level up their expertise in order to jumpstart the development of innovative, high-integrity carbon removal projects. To help with this acceleration and to blaze a trail for the private sector to follow, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the world’s first public carbon removal credit purchasing program, the Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize. 

With this program, the DOE has provided in-depth diligence and research to select 24 semifinalist projects developing some of the most promising technologies, including direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, and biomass carbon removal with storage. By creating a rigorous process to select projects for multi-million dollar purchase agreements, the U.S. government has also provided expert-level project vetting you can leverage as a private buyer. Later this year the DOE will launch a twin recognition program, the Voluntary Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchasing Challenge, to recognize private carbon removal purchases.

Patch has brought together leaders from the DOE, Bain & Company, and Charm Industrial to dig into the science behind the semifinalist projects and how buyers can draft off this process to accelerate high-integrity carbon removal.