The durable CDR industry has delivered a total of 500,000 carbon removal credits (or 500,000 metric tons of CO2e) to the market over the last 5 years[1]. This represents good progress for the many emerging CDR suppliers bringing new projects online.
But this is the very beginning. In order to reach net zero by midcentury, we need over 350,000,000[2] credits issued per year by 2030. That is 700X all CDR credits delivered to date! We have to move at a rapid pace to stay on track. And while we move quickly, we must maintain an unrelenting focus on quality. The market will only succeed if we do both.
Isometric and Graphyte have worked together over the last 8 months to rigorously – and rapidly – issue the first credits under the Subsurface Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage protocol. We’ve had a lot of learnings along the way that can inform the way the CDR market we need is built.
The Ingredients to Issuing High Quality Credits
What does it take to issue a carbon removal credit? The issuance lifecycle can be broken down into 5 key steps.
1. Establishing the Science
Science is the underpinning of high quality CDR. In Graphyte’s case, the Carbon Casting process is designed to permanently preserve the carbon stored inside of biomass byproducts from the agriculture and timber industries. This is done by drying biomass below a critical water level to prevent decomposition and keeping it dry through a series of engineering steps. This method builds on established peer reviewed research and is validated through extensive scientific experimentation. Scientific work with research partners – looking at everything from how microbes grow inside of biomass to the permeability properties of our encapsulation film – serves as the groundwork that, in this case, enables the delivery of high durability carbon removal.
2. Developing the Protocol
The protocol is the foundational document for any carbon removal credit – it lays out the rules a CDR supplier must follow and establishes clear principles for what high quality carbon removal looks like in a given pathway. It’s important for the protocol to be developed by an independent third party to maintain objectivity, consistency and scientific rigor.
Isometric and Graphyte went deep into evaluating all of the scientific evidence related to the Carbon Casting process. Isometric focused on evaluating evidence, reviewing academic literature and establishing conservative approaches to ensure minimal risk of reversal or environmental harms. Both teams ensured the Carbon Casting process was well documented. This scientific collaboration relied on a rapid, iterative approach which produced a result balancing scientific rigor with operational considerations.
Isometric also tapped more than 300 experts across industry, academia, and the NGO community to weigh in through a public comment period to build industry consensus.
Using a modular approach meant this protocol was able to build on their existing work, making the process efficient and effective. For example, Isometric had already drafted a feedstock accounting module used by suppliers like Vaulted Deep and Charm Industrial – Graphyte was able to take advantage of this work to ensure biomass was sourced to the highest standard. The end result was a finalized protocol in just 6 months.
3. Building the Project
The project itself is a critical component to issuing carbon removal credits. When Graphyte evaluated potential pilot project sites, Pine Bluff, Arkansas was chosen because it sits at the intersection of significant agricultural and timber production, where there is excess supply of waste biomass from sawmills and rice mills. Other critical components of project development include deep collaboration with the local community, robust engineering/design, and engagement with regulators to secure the right permits. As Isometric drafted the protocol, Graphye updated and refined the removal process to ensure all requirements were met with an eye to the end goal of credit issuance.
4. Creating the Data Infrastructure
Building the data infrastructure needed to meet the protocol requirements and calculate our carbon accounting is critical. In this case, data points included important characteristics such as the electricity used minute by minute, weights of incoming biomass on trucks from various suppliers, the moisture and carbon content at multiple points throughout the process, quality tests for the seal of the encapsulation film, and regular measurements at the storage site to ensure no biomass decomposition has occurred. This level of granularity fed directly into the Isometric Certify system, providing an unprecedented level of transparency to the public for each issued credit and ensuring the entire process is net negative.
5. Verifying that the Project Meets the Requirements
Once the carbon has been removed, a third-party Validation and Verification Body (VVB) needs to audit the entire project to ensure it is compliant with the Protocol. The verification process is extensive and every component is scrutinized at length. In this case, it included a site visit to the Loblolly Project as well as to all of the sawmills and rice mills supplying waste biomass to the project. The VVB reviews a big package of data and documentation from the project demonstrating compliance with each component of the protocol. They then score all of the information and present the information to Isometric before the credits are issued. This process – involving multiple layers of third-party review – is absolutely necessary to ensure trust and transparency are prioritized.
Building a Purpose Built Carbon Credit System
Once credits are issued, many in the emerging carbon removal industry will look to scale. There are a few key lessons from our early experience that can help inform building the carbon crediting system of the future:
- Design and update protocols iteratively. The industry will need to build on the work already accomplished. This will take the form of iterative protocol design where we are collectively updating protocols as we learn from science, experimentation and real-world results. Going forward, existing protocols will need to be regularly updated to reflect the most up to date science as suppliers develop new innovative carbon removal methods and as we learn from what is already being practiced.
- Leverage data effectively. Data collection and integration aspects will only grow as we strive for high quality, rigorous and transparent crediting practices. The Isometric Certify platform is designed to take in data directly through an API and suppliers will be able to build their systems to seamlessly share the many data points that build up to a verifiable carbon credit. Graphyte spent significant time building their system to capture real-time data inputs such as moisture levels, carbon content, and biomass weights enabling direct transfer of this data into Isometric’s system. This type of integration will be critical to scaling up projects and credit issuances.
- Frontload validation. Registries and suppliers can start collecting and reviewing data early on in the development lifecycle. Finding efficient ways to frontload the work can help cut down on validation timelines. For example, evaluating and certifying eligible biomass suppliers early on in project development can help accelerate project development timelines and streamline the credit issuance process.
- Verify regularly. Verifying and issuing credits on a frequent basis is another critical aspect to scale projects. CDR suppliers need to be able to quickly transfer credits to buyers and capture the cash flow associated with those credits. Isometric is building an infrastructure to enable monthly issuances at scale will eliminate the long, tedious waits for verification that have previously plagued credit issuance.
We all know that scaling high quality, durable carbon removal is needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change. We are already behind the IPCC targets and need to accelerate projects as much as we possibly can. However, we need to do that while maintaining the rigor and quality of those credits. This is only possible when suppliers and registries design every aspect of their work to meet those goals.
Hannah Murnen is the Chief Technology Officer of durable carbon dioxide removal company Graphyte and Stacy Kauk is the Head of Science for Isometric, a carbon credit certification platform.
[1] Cdr.fyi
[2] World Resources Institute Systems Change Lab
