Canada’s Carbon Streaming to provide Microsoft with biochar carbon removal

Toronto-based Carbon Streaming Corporation announced today it will provide Microsoft with carbon removal credits from the Waverly Biochar project in Waverly, Va. The Waverly Biochar project is expected to deliver up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits per year towards Microsoft’s carbon negative target.

“We are delighted to be working with Microsoft to provide them with high quality and scalable carbon dioxide removals to support their carbon negative commitment. We’re particularly excited about the capacity for biochar to scale this decade with support from visionary organizations such as Microsoft,” said Oliver Forster, vice-president of sales at Carbon Streaming.

“We’re pleased to work with Carbon Streaming to support the development of biochar as a carbon removal approach through the Waverly Biochar project. Carbon Streaming’s capacity to provide project-level finance is an important part of scaling this industry and it ensures we can focus on procuring carbon removal from high quality projects,” said Brian Marrs, senior director, energy and carbon, Microsoft.

Producing biochar and burying it in soils is a way of storing carbon for centuries. According to Project Drawdown, biochar could scale to sequester between 1.36-3.00 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2050, equivalent to between two and four and a half years of Canada’s 2021 carbon emissions.

Achieving gigaton scale will require building both supply and demand, and corporations can support the growth of the industry by committing to offtake of the carbon removal credits from biochar projects. Microsoft is playing a key role through their commitment to offtake verified carbon dioxide removal generated by the Waverly Biochar facility.

“Alongside other nature-based and technological carbon removal solutions, we see biochar as a vital piece of the puzzle for corporations with net zero commitments. Its capacity to scale and deliver relatively cost-effective removals towards corporate commitments this decade are standout attributes” added Forster.

Carbon Streaming’s approach provides project capital to project developers, enabling them to accelerate their projects. This also provides a major benefit to corporations using carbon credits as part of their climate strategies. Rather than having to provide upfront capital to climate projects, corporations can instead commit to purchasing the verified removal upon issuance. This relationship between Carbon Streaming, project developer and corporate end users aims to remove a key barrier to corporate action – internal ability to invest upfront.