Neustark secures one of largest carbon removal purchases this year

• Switzerland’s Climate Cent Foundation has granted CHF 50 million of funding to five projects in the field of negative emission technologies. Swiss carbon removal provider neustark was awarded two projects to permanently removal of 29’500 tons of CO₂.
• The purchase of 29’500 tons of permanent carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is one of the largest this year to date. For these projects, neustark will store the CO₂ in demolition concrete as well as geologically.
• The Swiss climate tech continues to scale up and expand internationally at a rapid pace: This week, two more storage sites will go into operation, making it a total of eleven sites that are already in operation. A dozen more sites are currently under construction abroad.
• Neustark has developed and rolled out a negative emission technology that is already removing tons of CO₂ every day from the atmosphere via its mineralization technology.

As communicated last week, the Climate Cent Foundation has chosen to support five carbon removal projects with 50 million Swiss francs until 2030. The projects all capture CO₂ directly at point source and then store it permanently. The foundation aims to make an important contribution to developing negative emission technologies (NET), which it recognizes as crucial to reach the net zero targets adopted worldwide and voted for by the Swiss population in June 2023. The Climate Cent Foundation is a voluntary scheme set up by the Swiss business community with the aim of ensuring effective climate protection.

Two neustark projects chosen – 29’500 tons of CDR purchased

Out of the 21 submitted projects, of which five were selected through a rigorous process, neustark was the only company to be awarded two contracts. Neustark also secured the largest contract volume: The total of 29,500 tons of CO₂ purchased from neustark by the Climate Cent Foundation makes it one of the largest CDR deals worldwide this year.

The first investment will be allocated to the company's main field of activity: neustark captures biogenic CO₂ at biogas plants, liquefies it for transport, and then stores it permanently in demolition concrete via its mineralization technology. The contract for this project totals at 16,500t CO₂, which will be permanently removed by neustark.

"Generating negative emissions is crucial to reach our climate neutral targets by 2050. Funding like that by the Climate Cent Foundation allow carbon removal providers like neustark to scale up even more quickly – and thus contribute even more to protecting our climate and planet," says Valentin Gutknecht, founder and co-CEO of neustark.

The second project selected by the foundation aims at developing further permanent storage methods. As Johannes Tiefenthaler, founder and co-CEO of neustark, puts it, "Storing CO₂ geologically offers great potential, which first must be tapped. Thanks to the Climate Cent Foundation's grant, we can accelerate this process of rolling out our model of capturing and storing CO₂ in the underground in the next years."

Neustark’s role in this geological storage project is as follows: the company manages the entire value chain, working with partners to capture and liquefy the CO₂ at point source (biogas plants) in Switzerland, transports the emissions via rail, ship and truck, and stores the CO₂ underground in countries such as Iceland or Norway. Neustark also manages the certification of its carbon removal with third party verification partners. The contract volume for this project is 13,000t CO₂.

Neustark continues to scale up – 11 sites already in operation

Neustark is a leading provider in the rapidly growing field of permanent carbon removal, having developed and rolled out a solution to store CO₂ from the air in recycled mineral waste such as demolished concrete.

After testing the mobile prototype at various locations in 2021, the Swiss scale-up went in operation with its first stationary storage facilities in 2022. Over the past eight months, neustark has widely rolled out its technology. Its largest storage site to date was inaugurated last month in Biberist, Switzerland, and two more sites will start removing CO₂ this week in Basel and Thurgau. In total, eleven storage facilities with a total annual capacity of around 3’000 tons of CO₂ are already in operation.

Around a dozen further capture and storage sites are currently under construction – not only in Switzerland but also in Germany, Austria and France. Neustark is scaling up rapidly, on track towards its goal of permanently removing one million tons of CO₂ in 2030 and beyond.