BCG and Climeworks Sign 15-Year Agreement Redefining Carbon Removal Leadership

• Two Years after Signing Their First Carbon Removal Partnership in 2021, Climeworks and BCG Sign an Unprecedented¹ 15-Year Agreement to Rapidly Scale High-Quality Carbon Removal to Fight Global Warming
• This Removals Purchase of 80,000 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide (TCO2) Is the Largest of Climeworks’s Corporate Buys to Date
• The Significant Duration of the Agreement Underlines the Crucial Role of Long-Term Commitments to Fast-Track the Capacity Buildout of High-Quality Removals. For This, Climeworks Is a Leader in Multiple Geographies

ZURICH—Climeworks, a global leader in carbon removal via direct air capture technology, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, are strengthening their collaboration with a 15-year strategic partnership agreement.

As with their first contract in 2021, this agreement entails a carbon removal purchase agreement to support BCG’s journey to net zero, and an agreement for BCG to provide consulting services to Climeworks.

Cornelius Pieper, Christoph Gebald, and Rich Lesser at COP28 in Dubai (1 December 2023)

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Unlocking the Potential of Direct Air Capture

The world needs direct air capture in order to reach net zero by 2050. Major early investment will enable this innovative technology to operate at the gigaton scale required—a scale that currently far surpasses projected supply for the coming decades. That’s why BCG has committed to help scale permanent removals like direct air capture via large-scale, long-term investment. In doing so, the firm hopes to encourage more pioneering investment in direct air capture, lower the cost curve, and scale-up this vital climate technology.

At the Climeworks Direct Air Capture Summit in June, Rich Lesser, BCG’s global chair, said, “We have a responsibility, every one of us in every firm, to accelerate our journey. Early investment can change the curve and will benefit everyone.”

“Together with BCG, we’re redefining what carbon removal stewardship looks like with an agreement going all the way up to 2040. Long-term commitments defined the success of the solar energy transition and will undoubtedly become more frequent in our industry. It sets a precedent for other climate leaders understanding that carbon removal is a necessity and securing their share of supply early in this future trillion-dollar market,” said Jan Huckfeldt, Chief Commercial Officer of Climeworks.

Resilient Investment in Permanent Carbon Removals

The long-term partnership will accelerate Climeworks’s global rollout of its direct air capture and storage plants, providing planning security and fostering financing efforts—akin to how long-term contracting facilitated early solar energy projects. The contract, covering 80,000 metric tons of CO2, represents the single largest purchase of Climeworks’s corporate buyers to date. It comes on the heels of the US Department of Energy’s selection of Climeworks as the technology partner for three direct air capture hubs in the US, as well as the company’s latest partnerships in Kenya and Canada.

“Without carbon removal, net zero is out of reach. This is true for BCG and across industries at large. It’s imperative that we start scaling carbon removal today, in particular high-quality solutions that are verifiable, additional, and permanent, to be able to meet the growing demand in the coming decades. Climeworks continues to be a driving force in carbon removal and is a valued partner on the path to BCG’s net zero target,” said David Webb, Chief Sustainability Officer of BCG.

Media Contacts
Climeworks: media@climeworks.com
BCG: media2@bcg.com

Editor’s Notes
Climeworks:

• Images of Climeworks’s technology are available in the Climeworks newsroom
• For more information about the cost trajectory for DAC, see BCG’s report “The Time for Carbon Removal Has Come”

BCG:

• Annual Sustainability Report: Expanding Our Reach, Enhancing Our Impact
• Shifting the Direct Air Capture Paradigm
• The First Three Years of BCG’s Net Zero Journey

^{1. Based on publicly available sources.}

About Climeworks

Climeworks is a global leader in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a service via direct air capture (DAC) technology, empowering companies to advance their net zero roadmaps and fight global warming.

Founded by engineers Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher in 2009, Climeworks is on a journey to climate impact at scale with integrity at its core and a focus on the highest quality, permanent removals.

Climeworks is spearheading the DAC industry globally, with the world’s first commercial DAC facility combined with storage installation in operation, modular CO₂ collectors designed for scalability, and facilities running exclusively on clean energy. Their growing customer base counts over 160 companies, including multinationals such as Microsoft, BCG, UBS, and Swiss Re. 

At Orca, Climeworks’ DAC facility in Iceland, the CO₂ is permanently removed from the air by capturing and geologically storing it for thousands of years with Climeworks’ underground mineralization partner Carbfix. The CDR services delivered from Orca are verified by independent 3^rd party DNV. 

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