‍How Corporate Sustainability Teams Can Get Ahead
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Why Act on Carbon Removals Now?

Before diving into strategies, it's important to learn the benefits of early action:

1. Early Mover Advantages: As an early mover, you capitalise on brand and marketing benefits, experiment with potential ways to integrate the cost of removals into your business model, and develop key supplier relationships early. This also positions your company as a leader in climate action.
2. Favourable Pricing: You can not only protect yourself from the increase in prices (around 25% in the last 2 years and projected to increase by up to 40% over the next 10 years), but also access additional discounts as an early mover in the space. With demand forecast to outstrip supply by 3-6x by 2030, acting now results in significant cost savings.¹
3. Secure Carbon Credit Supply: With supply crunch coming, locking in access to high-quality supply, paired with guarantees or insurance mechanisms, can secure your carbon removal outcomes and de-risk future claims you want to make. 
4. Future-proof Your Business: By acting now, you de-risk long-term net zero goals for your business and your customers by supporting technologies going to market. This helps your company and also contributes to broader industry solutions.
5. Stay Ahead of Regulation Changes: Voluntary actions are quickly turning into compliance obligations. Acting now allows you to stay ahead of, and even influence, emerging policy by demonstrating an active approach today.
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Key Purchasing Strategies

Here are emerging carbon removal purchasing strategies that corporate leaders can act on today:

1. Contributing to a Net Zero Innovation Fund

This approach involves allocating a dedicated budget towards innovative removals technologies. It's particularly relevant for companies with larger, long-term neutralisation needs, often in high-emitting industries. These investments may prioritise innovative methods or specific impacts (e.g. carbon removed in the Global South, which leads to additional job creation and other social co-benefits). This strategy allows your organisation to catalyse the development of crucial technologies, create wider social benefits, and demonstrate leadership in climate action. This could look like:

• Fixed contributions towards carbon removals, such as a percentage of revenue or profit.
• A reallocation of a portion of existing offsetting budgets towards carbon removals.
• Making investments linked to an internal carbon price.

Example: CUR8 supports British Airways (BA) in making transformational investments in novel removal methods like Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), sending a strong signal of BA’s role in catalysing removal technologies that are crucial for the aviation industry to reach net zero.
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2. Achieving 'Operational Net Zero'

Corporates are looking to neutralise operational emissions under their direct control, to draw attention to their decarbonisation progress while incentivising further reductions. This strategy focuses on compensating for remaining operational emissions, typically including:

• Scope 1 and 2 emissions
• Scope 3.6 and 3.7 emissions, like corporate travel, employee commuting, and more

Example: CUR8 is supporting a range of businesses in achieving operational net zero, particularly where Scope 3 emissions account for a large portion of the overall total footprint. This includes working with international services firms whose largest emissions come from corporate travel, as well as brick-and-mortar businesses that are compensating for residual emissions across their core operations and assets.

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3. Offering ‘Carbon Removed’ Products and Events'

A carbon-removed product represents a specific, measurable contribution to demonstrate commitment to the principles of net zero. This is a great starting point for companies looking to start small and scale investments over time, as it is low risk and high reward. It also allows you to build the business case early. This approach involves integrating carbon removal into specific products or events, allowing for cost recovery and signalling a broader commitment to sustainability. For example, the cost recovery can occur by folding the cost of the removed carbon into the event ticket or product price. By offering carbon removed products or events, companies can differentiate themselves in the market and engage customers directly in their sustainability efforts. The process is to:

• Measure: All product/event-related emissions.
• Reduce: Emissions in line with a pathway to 1.5°C.
• Remove: All remaining residual emissions.

Example: From the Queen's Platinum Jubilee to the London Marathon, CUR8 has helped leading organisations deliver carbon removed events. This extends to supporting annual corporate conferences to operate as carbon removed. With AEG and the O2 Arena, a 90p charge was added to fan tickets for a series of carbon removed concerts— this was no cost to AEG and still resulted in a great fan experience. CUR8 also actively supports built environment firms to remove embodied carbon associated with property development, enabling direct compensation claims and integration into the cost of goods and services.
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4. Investing Ahead of Your Net Zero Target

This purchasing strategy is about committing multi-year budgets to invest in a reliable carbon credit supply. This would be in order to neutralise your residual emissions in your net zero target year. For companies with nearer-term net zero targets (e.g. 2030-2040), securing a reliable carbon removal credit supply now is a strategic move. By investing early, companies can secure high-quality credits at potentially lower prices, hedge against future price increases and potentially limited future supply, and demonstrate commitment to their goals. In line with the Oxford Offsetting Principles, companies investing in projects to counterbalance residual emissions should also progressively increase the portion of their investments into carbon removal projects, starting now. The ultimate aim is to reach 100% removals by the global net zero date (2050 at the latest) to ensure alignment with the Paris Agreement. This could look like:

• Purchasing multi-year carbon removal agreements, also known as offtakes.
• Having full carbon removal guarantees, such as through insurance.
• Negotiating preferential payment terms. 

Example: CUR8 supports organisations with a near-term net zero target (2027, 2030 and 2035) in securing high-quality credit supply year-over-year, within guaranteed multi-year offtakes, thus securing supply plus sending a strong signal of their commitment to net zero. This approach not only ensures their future compliance but also supports the development of technologies crucial for the entire industry.
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Building Your Carbon Removal Strategy

Now, when developing your approach, consider these key elements:

1. Climate/Net Zero Goals: What are you trying to achieve? This could include generating tangible environmental impact, driving business growth, catalysing wider innovation, or influencing policy.
2. Emissions Scope: What is your forecast residual emissions profile in 2040? How do you define your organisations emissions boundary and how might this evolve?
3. Public Claims: What kind of claim do you want to make, how do you want to communicate it, and when? This could range from ongoing contributions to short-term compensation or long-term neutralisation claims.
4. Portfolio Performance: Which projects and outcomes do you want to support? Consider factors like co-benefits, drawdown speed (how quickly the carbon gets removed), global footprint, your preferred methods, and best practises for durability and risk.
5. Cost & Budget: What cost profile and budget is possible? Many companies are indexing carbon prices to around £150/tonne with committed annual budgets. Quicker drawdown speeds, for example, could come with a higher price point.
6. Commercial Approach: How will you pay for carbon removal at scale? Options include cost recovery by passing costs onto goods and services, value chain co-investment, or integrating it into your risk management profile.
7. Industry Opportunities: What opportunities are top of mind for your company in your market? You can consider potential corporate partnerships, competitor activity, emerging policy, and new markets.
8. Mindset & Market Understanding: How can you start small? It’s best to develop the mindset of progress over perfection. Seek out your own market understanding, or professionals to help you navigate it. Start small and scale up from there, to build up the muscle of carbon removals investments!
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Conclusion

As the carbon removals market grows, early adoption offers you clear advantages in pricing, access to supply, and future-proofing your business operating model. By considering these purchasing strategies, how to get started with carbon removals, and your organisation's specific needs, you can create a pathway to your net zero goals.

Remember, while the journey to net zero can feel complex, it's an achievable goal. With strategic planning and the right approach to carbon removal, your organisation can make a significant impact in addressing climate change while gaining competitive advantages in your industry. You can maximise your impact, minimise risk, and position your company as a leader in the transition to a sustainable future.

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About CUR8: We're a team of global experts on carbon removal, building scalable technology and unlocking finance. We combine this scientific expertise to help organisations to act with confidence when removing carbon from the atmosphere. To learn more about how CUR8 helps organisations create a carbon removal strategy, connect with us here.

^{1 BCG, projections of 2030 supply/demand scenarios, The time for carbon removal has come, 2023. CDRY.FYI data shows that carbon removal sales grew 33x in 2023 alone.}