The climate-focused Frontier coalition, which includes tech and retail giants like Google, H&M, and Stripe, has announced a commitment to purchase $80 million worth of carbon credits from two innovative developers utilising cutting-edge technologies to capture and store carbon emissions. The deals reflect growing private-sector investment in carbon removal solutions, even as political uncertainty clouds broader climate commitments.
The coalition has agreed to purchase $48 million worth of credits from CO280, representing 224,500 metric tons of carbon removal between 2028 and 2030. CO280 employs carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from oil services firm SLB to retrofit paper mill smokestacks. This approach captures emissions originally stored in trees used for paper production.
In another deal, Frontier committed $32.1 million or $447 per metric ton, for 71,878 tons of carbon removal from CREW, a New Haven, Connecticut-based startup. CREW uses carbon-attracting limestone in municipal wastewater plants to absorb CO2. The innovative method capitalizes on certain rocks’ natural properties to sequester carbon, measuring CO2 levels before and after treatment to quantify the removal.
The deals reflect Frontier’s strategy to lower carbon removal costs to $100 per metric ton or less, a critical benchmark for making these technologies widely accessible. Currently, the cost per ton for CO280’s credits is $214, while CREW’s credits are priced at $447. Both CO280 and CREW’s projects emphasize retrofitting older industries with advanced carbon technologies, aligning with global efforts to innovate in industrial decarbonization.
“We are really excited about the possibility for large industrial players to integrate carbon removal technologies and start to deliver carbon removal cheaply and at scale,” said Hannah Bebbington, head of deployment at Frontier.
