A new carbon dioxide removal service has been launched today by Carbon Engineering (CE) that allows customers to purchase the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using CE’s large-scale DAC technology. Shopify, a leading global commerce company, has signed on as the first customer for the service, reserving 10,000 tonnes of permanent carbon removal capacity from a large-scale DAC project.
The carbon dioxide removal will be achieved through CE’s plant development partner, 1PointFive – the US development company currently engineering CE’s first industrial-scale facility that is expected to be operational in 2024.
Shopify’s significant commitment – the largest publicly-announced corporate purchase of DAC-based carbon removal – reflects a growing awareness of the need to include large-scale carbon dioxide removal as part of the climate solution. DAC removes carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, enabling it to be permanently, securely and measurably put back underground. This process entirely reverses any carbon dioxide emission, providing a solution for hard-to-decarbonize industries and processes, as well as providing customers with a reliable way to remove their emissions from the past.
“Carbon Engineering’s mission has always been to deliver a highly scalable and affordable solution for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” said CE CEO, Steve Oldham. “We’re on the brink of large-scale deployment of our technology and the next critical step is accumulating market interest and securing customers. This new service allows us to do that. It also makes it easy for companies and governments to include permanent carbon removal in their net-zero plans. We’re thrilled to expand our relationship with Shopify and welcome them as our first carbon removal customer, and we look forward to supporting others so we can collectively make large-scale carbon removal a reality.”
CE’s new service allows customers to purchase carbon removal units in quantities as small as 100 units. Each unit represents one metric tonne of carbon dioxide captured and permanently removed from the atmosphere, offsetting emissions from the past, the present day, or the future. Customers pre-pay a deposit for their carbon removal units, with the remainder due only once the carbon dioxide has been physically removed and independently verified. Customers will receive discounts for purchasing higher volumes.
“DAC combined with permanent storage, through standalone sequestration, will play a critical role in reversing climate change,” said Stacy Kauk, Director of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund. “Shopify is on a mission to make commerce better for everyone, and to help make a low-carbon future a reality. We’re Carbon Engineering’s first customer because we recognize the need to go beyond emissions reductions. Our commitment to this new carbon dioxide removal service is not powerful enough on its own—we need others to join Shopify’s efforts, in any capacity, to catalyze this frontier large-scale DAC technology.”
Carbon removal unit purchases will be fulfilled by large-scale DAC facilities that will be deployed by CE’s development partner 1PointFive. In the US, 1PointFive is already underway with its first industrial-scale DAC plant. CE also has a partnership with Pale Blue Dot Energy to deploy DAC in the UK. Projects will deliver permanent carbon removal by pairing CE’s large-scale DAC technology with secure geological storage of the carbon dioxide. The projects will adhere to stringent permanence standards with the end-to-end lifecycle analysis monitored, reported, and verified. Customers will receive full transparency so they can unambiguously verify the environmental benefit of their purchase.
“We welcome this news and applaud Shopify on their climate leadership position,” said 1PointFive Chairman Richard Jackson. “Alongside climate experts like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we recognize that permanent carbon removal is going to be necessary to achieve our vision of a sustainable low-carbon world. 1PointFive looks forward to bringing large-scale carbon removal capability based on CE’s technology to the market, helping customers worldwide to achieve their climate goals.”
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Noah Deich, President and Co-founder, Carbon180:
“Early customers for direct air capture (DAC) — especially companies with ambitious climate goals — can have outsized impact today: not only does procuring DAC services enable companies to hit “net-zero” pledges faster, but it helps DAC technology come down the “learning curve,” driving cost reductions and making DAC services more affordable and accessible for a wider customer base in the future. I’m very excited to see Carbon Engineering announce a way for early corporate leaders — and hopefully a wave of fast followers — to devote more of their climate spend towards DAC.”
Michael Bernstein, Executive Director, Clean Prosperity:
“Carbon dioxide removal technologies like that offered by Carbon Engineering are a critical piece of the effort to address climate change. We need big investments in carbon removal and we need them fast. Carbon Engineering’s new carbon dioxide removal service is an innovative way to accelerate this market, enabling at-scale build-out of direct-air-capture. The fact that the deal being announced today is between two Canadian companies is a clear signal that Canada can be a global leader in the carbon capture and removal industry.”
Dr Shaun Fitzgerald FREng, Director, Centre for Climate Repair at University of Cambridge:
“The creation of a financial instrument which helps investment now in order to accelerate DAC technology deployment is an important move. We need to scale up carbon dioxide removal globally so that we can start to bring greenhouse gas levels down. We need to undo the damage we have reaped through our historic emissions, as well as help balance the ongoing emissions which are going to be very difficult to avoid such as from agriculture. A portfolio of approaches is needed and it is great to see a company not just tackling the technology challenges but also devising ways to bring in customers now to help with the finance.”
Founded in 2009, CE is a Canadian-based clean energy company focused on the deployment of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO₂) directly from the atmosphere so it can be permanently stored deep underground or used to produce clean, affordable transportation fuels. From a pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia, CE has been removing CO₂ from the atmosphere since 2015 and converting it into fuels since 2017. Today, with its partner 1PointFive, CE is engineering a commercial scale DAC facility that will capture one million tons of CO₂ per year, equivalent to the work of 40 million trees. More information can be found at carbonengineering.com.
Shopify is a leading global commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. Shopify makes commerce better for everyone with a platform and services that are engineered for reliability, while delivering a better shopping experience for consumers everywhere. Founded in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify powers over 1.7 million businesses in more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, Heinz, Staples Canada, and many more. To learn more about Shopify’s sustainability efforts visit Shopify’s Sustainability Fund.
PointFive’s mission is to stabilize the climate by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less in coming years. To make this happen, they are dedicated to the deployment and commercialization of Carbon Engineering’s proven Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology at scale—enabling the removal of atmospheric CO2 via a network of DAC facilities. More at 1PointFive.com.
