Zurich, 09.12.2021
- Scientists and opinion leaders agree that direct air capture and storage is needed to fight climate change and the technology needs to be scaled up as fast as possible as highlighted in recent IPCC report.
- Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, has signed a 10-year agreement with Climeworks, a leader in carbon dioxide removal via direct air capture technology; this is the first of several agreements in direct air capture and advanced decarbonization technology it expects to sign.
- As part of the firm’s commitment to reach net-zero climate impact by 2030, BCG purchases Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal service to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and permanently store it underground.
- This 10-year agreement, the second for Climeworks, sends a strong signal to the market and proves that there is high long-term demand for measurable and permanent carbon dioxide removal already today, which is set to grow significantly.
- Through this contract BCG is setting an example for the fast adoption of technological carbon removal. On top of this, BCG will provide consulting services to Climeworks, which will further support the scale-up of the market demand for high-quality carbon dioxide removal.
This November, COP26 once again demonstrated the private sector’s vital role in the fight against climate change. To limit global warming to safe levels, we need to do everything we can. The latest report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that it is crucial to reduce our emissions drastically and on top of that permanently remove unavoidable and historic carbon emissions from the air. Companies act as a key enabler driving both emissions reductions as well as emissions removals by helping to advance innovative solutions.
One such solution is Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal via direct air capture technology: it is the only available solution that can reduce atmospheric concentration of CO2 in a scalable manner by capturing CO2 from the air today and storing it permanently underground.
BCG’s commitment to reach net-zero climate impact by 2030
In September 2020, BCG announced a bold new commitment to achieve net-zero climate impact by 2030 and, from there, to become climate positive, removing more carbon from the atmosphere than they annually emit. BCG has now signed a 10-year agreement with Climeworks, which will remove part of BCG’s unavoidable CO2 emissions and is thus an important part of the company’s net-zero strategy.
With this agreement, and others in this space still to come, BCG’s goal is to help unlock a meaningful direct air capture capacity by establishing long-term partnerships with direct air capture leaders to help scale the broader market and demonstrate the significant impact direct air capture can have in enabling companies to get to net-zero climate impact.
On top of the carbon removal purchasing agreement, BCG will provide consulting services to Climeworks with the objective of supporting the broader adoption and scaling of their services and thus help accelerate their scale-up.
About Climeworks’ direct air capture and storage technology
Powered solely by renewable energy, Climeworks’ direct air capture plants capture CO2 from the air. In Iceland, Climeworks’ storage partner Carbfix mixes the CO2 with water and pumps it deep underground where it reacts with the basaltic rock formations and mineralizes: the CO2 literally turns into stone. Climeworks’ technology is scalable and does not compete with arable land. This September, Climeworks launched its new large-scale direct air capture and storage plant “Orca” in Iceland, bringing large-scale direct air capture technology to reality.
Quote Climeworks
“The carbon removal market’s ability to scale up fast relies on early action from pioneering companies. After having brought the first carbon removal plant into operations earlier this year, we are proud to be partnering with BCG as the first direct air capture company and help them achieve their 2030 net zero ambition. Such partnerships also play a vital role in inspiring other businesses to support science-based and scalable solutions.” Christoph Gebald, co-CEO and co-founder of Climeworks
Quote BCG
“This is a critical partnership for BCG in our quest to lead in the decarbonization space. Not only will we use Climeworks services to help meet our own net zero goal by 2030, but we will also aim to make an even greater impact by acting as a consulting partner to Climeworks to help accelerate the broader adoption and scaling of their services worldwide.” Christoph Schweizer, CEO of BCG
About Climeworks
Climeworks empowers people and companies to fight global warming by offering carbon dioxide removal as a service via direct air capture (DAC) technology. 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’ storage partner Carbfix. Climeworks’ DAC facilities run exclusively on clean energy, and our modular CO2 collectors can be stacked to build machines of any capacity.
Founded by engineers Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher in 2009, Climeworks is on a journey to climate impact at scale. To do so, we strive to inspire 1 billion people to act and remove CO2 from the air. Climeworks is spear-heading the DAC industry globally, with the world’s largest DAC facility and storage installation in operation and a team of 300 Climeworkers determined to contribute to a net-zero future. Our growing customer base includes over 160 companies, including multinationals such as Microsoft, BCG, UBS or Swiss Re, as well as more than 18,000 individual Climate Pioneers.
For more information, please reach out to Climeworks' media team: