Corporate climate commitments helped bring carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, into mainstream business conversations. But the market is now entering a more demanding phase.
The central question is no longer simply whether companies support carbon removal in principle. It is how they choose projects, structure contracts, manage risks, account for removals and explain the role of CDR within a credible decarbonisation strategy.
The Carbon Business Council’s new series of CDR buyer profiles offers a useful window into that transition. Drawing on discussions with companies operating across sectors and regions, the series examines what is driving CDR investment and how sophisticated buyers are making decisions. The first published profile focuses on JPMorganChase, with further case studies expected.
The emerging picture is not one of a single “best” carbon removal solution. It is a market in which buyers are increasingly assembling portfolios across multiple pathways, while placing more attention on durability, delivery readiness, co-benefits, price and risk.
CDR is becoming a procurement discipline
Carbon removal is distinct from conventional emission reduction. Decarbonisation means reducing the greenhouse-gas emissions created by a company’s activities and value chain. CDR involves removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in a way that is intended to be measurable and durable.
That distinction matters because companies should not use removal purchases as a substitute for reducing their own emissions. Instead, credible climate strategies generally prioritise emissions reductions while considering high-integrity removals for residual or hard-to-abate emissions, and for longer-term net-zero objectives.
This creates a difficult procurement challenge. A buyer must assess not only the headline volume of tonnes contracted, but also questions such as:
How long will the carbon remain stored?
What is the project’s measurement, reporting and verification approach?
Can the supplier deliver the contracted removals at the expected time?
What happens if a project is delayed or under-delivers?
How do project risks, social impacts and biodiversity considerations affect quality?
Is the buyer making claims that accurately reflect the nature and timing of the purchase?
These are procurement, legal, financial, technical and reputational questions at the same time. They require more than a one-off purchase of environmental attributes.
Why portfolio strategies are gaining ground
The Carbon Business Council reports that buyers featured in the series are using a portfolio approach across land, rock, air and water-based removal pathways. In practical terms, this means combining different removal methods rather than placing all future climate claims or procurement budgets on a single technology.
A diversified portfolio can help address a fundamental reality of the CDR market: every pathway involves trade-offs.
Nature-based approaches, including reforestation and ecosystem restoration, can be available today and may provide important benefits for communities, biodiversity, water and land resilience. However, their permanence can be affected by fire, disease, land-use change and governance failure.
Durable engineered or hybrid approaches, such as biochar, biomass carbon removal and storage, direct air capture with geological storage, enhanced rock weathering, and mineralisation, may offer storage periods measured in centuries or longer. Yet many remain early-stage, have limited operational capacity, face high costs or require complex infrastructure and verification systems.
A portfolio approach does not remove these risks. It makes them explicit and allows a buyer to balance them.
For example, a company may procure a combination of restoration-based removals for near-term climate and nature outcomes, alongside smaller forward purchases from durable CDR suppliers. This can support market development while avoiding an over-reliance on a technology that may not deliver at the necessary scale or timetable.
The important point is that diversification should be deliberate. It should be based on documented quality criteria, not used as a marketing label.
Delivery readiness is now as important as durability
Durability remains central to CDR purchasing. Buyers increasingly value methods that can store carbon for centuries or millennia, particularly when planning for long-term net-zero targets. But the CDR buyer profile series highlights another growing priority: delivery readiness.
This reflects the difference between an attractive technical concept and a bankable supplier relationship.
A removal project may have a compelling methodology and a strong climate rationale, but buyers still need evidence of operational capability. They need to understand the project’s development stage, financing position, permitting requirements, feedstock or energy dependencies, monitoring arrangements and route to delivery.
For procurement teams, a high-quality diligence process should therefore look at both carbon quality and commercial readiness.
Carbon quality asks whether the removal is additional, measurable, durable and credibly verified.
Commercial readiness asks whether the supplier can build, operate, monitor and deliver what it has contracted to provide.
The strongest CDR market will be built where both are assessed rigorously.
Contract design is a climate-integrity issue
The buyer profiles also point to the use of staged contracts, regular delivery updates and ongoing engagement between buyers and project developers.
This is an important development. Long-term CDR offtake agreements can help developers secure finance and invest in capacity, but they should not be treated as simple transactions. Early-stage projects can face technology delays, construction challenges, permitting issues, changing costs and verification uncertainty.
A well-structured agreement may include:
Milestone-based payments linked to project development or verified delivery
Clear rules on replacement credits or remedies for non-delivery
Regular operational, financial and environmental reporting
Defined standards for monitoring, reporting and verification
Transparency on whether credits are delivered, contracted or merely planned
Provisions covering reversal risk, where relevant
Rights for buyers to review material changes to the project
These mechanisms protect buyers, but they can also help credible developers distinguish themselves from suppliers whose delivery plans are less robust.
What corporate buyers should do next
For companies beginning or expanding CDR procurement, the practical starting point is not a public announcement. It is a decision framework.
First, establish the role of removals within the company’s transition plan. The strategy should make clear that CDR complements, rather than replaces, emissions reductions across operations and value chains.
Second, define a written purchasing policy. This should set out acceptable pathways, minimum durability expectations, verification requirements, treatment of co-benefits, claims rules and risk thresholds.
Third, build internal governance. Procurement, sustainability, legal, finance, risk and communications teams should not work in isolation. A CDR contract can affect financial commitments, sustainability reporting and public claims simultaneously.
Fourth, use staged learning. A smaller portfolio of well-diligenced purchases can provide valuable experience before a company makes large, long-dated commitments.
Finally, communicate carefully. Buyers should distinguish between removals already delivered, future removals under contract and aspirational procurement plans. Precision builds trust.
The market signal
The new buyer-profile series is a sign that the carbon removal market is becoming more commercially mature. The next stage will not be defined by the largest number of announcements. It will be defined by whether companies can turn interest into credible, transparent and well-governed procurement.
For buyers, that means taking removal quality and supplier readiness seriously. For project developers, it means proving they can deliver. For investors, it means recognising that durable CDR is not just a climate technology category, but an emerging infrastructure and contracting market.
The organisations that understand this early will be better placed to support genuine climate outcomes while managing the operational and reputational risks that come with a rapidly evolving market.
Sources
Carbon Business Council, “Who’s Buying Carbon Removal in 2026, and Why Now”
Carbon Herald, “Carbon Business Council Launches New Series Exploring CDR Buyer Profiles”
Carbon Business Council, “About the Carbon Business Council”