Microsoft and Vaulted Deep, a waste management solutions startup, announced the Second-largest carbon removal agreement to date. Indeed, Microsoft will purchase up to 4.9 million tonnes of permanent CO₂ removal from Vaulted Deep over the next twelve years.
This announcement marks an important milestone not only for the carbon dioxide removal sector, but also for the biosolids management industry to which Vaulted Deep belongs.
The startup’s approach focuses on partnerships with municipalities, industrial operators, and agricultural producers to manage their organic waste that can’t be reused or safely applied to land. Different types of organic wastes, including biosolids, are then sequestered deep underground for permanent storage. This method not only locks away carbon for over 10,000 years but also helps prevent methane emissions and environmental contamination from PFAS and other trace pollutants. For the record, Vaulted has already sequestered 18,000 tonnes of CO₂ and diverted 69,000 tonnes of organic waste.
The startup’s technology has been operating since 2008 and is certified by the carbon registry, Isometric, ensuring each credit issued reflects a scientifically validated tonne of carbon with over 1,000 years of durability.
Vaulted is actively seeking new municipal, agricultural, and industrial partners to offer its solution, and this significant agreement could be an opportunity to scale up across the US market. For instance, the last expansion of its Great Plains facility, in Kansas, which tripled the site’s processing capacity, could announce many more in the coming years, as the US produces over 1 billion tonnes of excess organic waste per year.
For Microsoft, the agreement marks the latest in a series of large-scale carbon credit deals, by far the largest corporate buyer of carbon removal credits globally. These several multi-million-tonne agreements are expected to partly help Microsoft’s efforts become carbon negative by 2030. According to the carbon dioxide removals platform CDR.fyi, the new agreement brings Microsoft’s carbon removal purchases to over 30 million tonnes, well ahead of the Frontier buyers group as the second largest purchaser at 1.4 million tonnes. This confirms the leading role of Microsoft in shaping the emerging carbon removal market.
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