Founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey, Frontier is an advance market commitment to buy $1B+ of permanent carbon dioxide removal (CDR) between 2022 and 2030. Their expert team facilitates purchases from high-potential CDR companies on behalf of buyers, accelerating the development of CDR tech and catalyzing net new supply.
Frontier
Supplier of Permanent Carbon Removals
Carbon Removal Suppliers and Buyers
Frontier Tonnes at a glance
The Frontier offtake portfolio focuses exclusively on the most innovative permanent carbon removal technologies ready to rapidly scale. Frontier’s suppliers are highly vetted against target criteria, including the ability to store removed carbon for more than a thousand years and the potential to be low-cost and high-volume in the future, in line with 2050 climate goals.
Pathways:
- Direct Air Capture
- Biomass with carbon removal and storage
- Enhanced rock weathering
- Other pathways to be added as they become offtake-ready
Durability: 1,000+ years
Project Locations: Global
Frontier offtake portfolio projects
The suppliers listed below are the first three included in Frontier’s Offtake portfolio.
More will be added as the portfolio continues to grow.
More will be added as the portfolio continues to grow.
Charm Industrial
Charm Industrial’s technology is rooted in biomass carbon removal and storage. They take bio-oil produced from biomass — maintaining much of the carbon captured naturally by the plants — and inject it into permanent geologic storage.
CarbonCapture Inc.
CarbonCapture’s direct air capture machines use solid sorbents that soak up atmospheric CO₂ and release concentrated CO₂ when heated. CarbonCapture’s core innovation is making the capture system modular and upgradeable so that they can swap in best-in-class sorbents as they become available. The captured CO₂ stream is then stored permanently underground.
Heirloom
Over geologic timescales, CO₂ chemically binds to minerals and permanently turns to stone. Heirloom is building a direct air capture solution that accelerates this process to absorb CO₂ from the ambient air in days rather than years, and then extracts the CO₂ to be stored permanently underground.
Frontier offtake tonne criteria
Prospective carbon removal suppliers are assessed against Frontier’s target criteria, execution capacity and contribution to a diverse, risk-adjusted portfolio of carbon removal approaches.
Target Criteria
Description
Durability
Stores carbon permanently, or more than 1,000 years
Physical footprint
Takes advantage of carbon sinks and sources that do not compete for arable land
Cost
Has a path to being affordable at scale (less than $100 per tonne)
Capacity
Has a path to being a significant part of the Frontier solution portfolio (removing more than 0.5 gigatons per year)
Net negativity
Maximizes net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Additionality
Results in net new carbon removed, rather than taking credit for removal that was already going to occur
Verifiability
Has a path to using scientifically rigorous and transparent methods for monitoring and verification
Safety and legality
Is working towards the highest standards of safety, compliance and local environmental outcomes; actively mitigates risks and negative environmental and other externalities on an ongoing basis
Carbon removal solutions are critical for mitigating climate change
Climate models indicate that reducing emissions isn’t enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change and stay below 1.5ºC – we also need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We have some solutions available today, like planting trees and sequestering carbon in the soil (see Nori Regenerative Tonnes™!), but we need more solutions in order to meet the scale of the problem.
By supporting a gigaton-scale portfolio of new and permanent carbon removal solutions, Frontier is helping give the CDR industry the confidence and resources it needs to scale — fast. With every permanent tonne purchased today, CDR innovators can continue building, refining, and scaling their technology so that we can reach our climate goals tomorrow.
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Building trust in a nascent industry
Frontier has brought together a multidisciplinary group of advisors and technical reviewers to evaluate the most promising carbon removal approaches.
Advisors include Susan Athey, Tom Kalil, Arun Majumdar, Dane Boysen, Rachel Glennerster, Christopher Snyder, Sarah Sclarsic, Ryan Orbuch, and Jeremy Freeman.
There are 60 technical reviewers total, including Holly Jean Buck, PhD; Brentan Alexander, PhD; Habib Azarabadi, PhD; Wil Burns, PhD; Struan Coleman; Liam Bullock, PhD, and many more.
Nori Net Zero Tonnes bring together Frontier’s permanent carbon removals with Nori Regenerative Tonnes
We need to remove carbon now and store it permanently — but most permanent carbon removal won’t be realized for several years as projects are building capacity to actually deliver new tons of removal. Enter the Nori Net Zero Tonne™.
The Net Zero Tonne was created to bring together the benefits of regenerative and permanent carbon removal. Each purchase supports soil restoration and immediate carbon sequestration through Nori Regenerative Tonnes, while catalyzing the development of permanent carbon removal via Frontier’s global portfolio.
Learn more about the Nori Net Zero Tonne.