For nearly half a decade, Microsoft has been one of the largest buyers of high-quality carbon removal. We've committed to buy tens of millions of CDR credits - typically years before delivery while projects were still in development stages - all to help build the supply of critical climate solutions that the world needs.
While we have periodically shared our thoughts on the market (such as https://lnkd.in/gBumrJsq), guidance on what constitutes high-quality carbon removal (https://lnkd.in/gNUuqNdf), and highlighted some innovative suppliers (https://aka.ms/AAz55rp), but we haven't always explained why we made individual purchase decisions.
Today, I'm elated to share spotlights on 4 projects where we serve as an anchor buyer, spanning soil organic carbon (SOC), afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR), improved forest management (IFM), and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
These spotlights explain how we assess whether 1) a project can be successfully built, 2) each carbon credit produced represents a metric tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere, and 3) it meets our other essential quality requirements.
We hope these vignettes help explain how our team evaluates hundreds of applications and builds conviction in the projects we ultimately support.
We are proud to work with MOMBAK, Indigo, EFM, and Ørsted as they continue to deliver CDR solutions. I want to recognize the excellent work of TJ Considine, Ross Bernet, Steph Harris, Corinne Grainger, Rafael Broze, Sean Foster, Kari Blanton, Nathalie Salazar, and Jessica Hinojosa who have partnered with these suppliers over the past several years and helped bring this behind-the-scenes work to light, in addition to Brian Marrs and Melanie Nakagawa for your executive sponsorship of our CDR work and Sam Winninghoff your consistent support.
If you're a buyer or other industry stakeholder, let us know how these spotlights help you in scaling the CDR market. Your input will help us determine how Microsoft can best share what we've learned to move this industry forward faster.
Link to spotlights in first comment 👇