Frontier, a coalition backed by major technology companies including Google and Stripe has agreed to pay $44.2 million for carbon removal credits from a Canadian firm developing biowaste-based carbon dioxide removal, according to the coalition’s head of deployment.
Frontier, was launched in 2022 by Stripe, Google, Meta, Shopify and McKinsey to help scale emerging carbon removal technologies by committing to purchase credits in advance. The approach is intended to reduce risk for early-stage projects and accelerate their development. Frontier has said it plans to spend $1 billion on carbon removal credits between 2022 and 2030.
Under the latest agreement, Frontier will purchase credits covering 122,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ to be permanently stored between 2026 and 2030 by NULIFE GreenTech. The company converts agricultural and industrial biowaste, including grease from food processing, into bio-oil. The credits were bought at an average weighted price of $362 per tonne.
NULIFE uses a high-pressure thermal process to break down waste into products such as bio-oil, which is then injected into salt caverns more than 1,000 metres underground for long-term storage. Frontier estimates the technology could eventually scale to remove up to 1.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide annually by 2040.
“The goal at Frontier is really to create a portfolio of solutions that we think are most likely to go the distance to a gigaton-scale future,” said Hannah Bebbington Valori, Frontier’s head of deployment.
Scientists say carbon removal projects are increasingly seen as necessary to offset emissions from sectors that continue to depend on fossil fuels.
