In the CDR market, currently dominated by leaders like Microsoft, we are seeing the rise of large consortiums such as Frontier, Milkywire, and NextGen. These consortiums are composed of diversified portfolios of project developers and multinational buyers. They heavily prioritise durable carbon removal and novel technologies to ensure funding reaches projects with strong carbon removal potential and long-term permanence.
These consortiums aim to build a credible, scalable carbon removal market by supporting projects that can remove atmospheric CO2 emissions at scale.
From our analysis, it’s clear that these consortiums primarily focus on technical and durable carbon removal solutions Their purchase agreements provide evidence of this, outlining prices, timelines, and credit volumes, with data from Frontier and Milkywire showing a strong emphasis on scaling up CDR technologies in the near future (<2030).
Frontier's portfolio demonstrates a strong emphasis on such solutions, with DAC and ERW projects collectively accounting for 50% of their suppliers. Similarly, Milkywire places significant focus on durable carbon removal, with 85% of their portfolio spread across DAC, Biochar (BCR), and ERW technologies. NextGen's portfolio is evenly spread across DAC, BCR, and BECCS.
On an aggregated basis, the average price of a carbon credit across these consortiums is currently around $800. Ultimately, their collective goal is to bring the cost down to an affordable price around $200 per credit.
This analysis also stresses on the importance of investing in high quality credits, as these have the potential to increase CDR capacity by a magnitude of 4000 and even more for certain projects(up to 30000).
Our data show high buyer ratings for most of the rated consortium buyers, and significant retirement volumes. This indicates that consortium buyers belong to the more active part of VCM participants.
Dashboard Use Cases
This dashboard will bring awareness and transparency to project developers and multinational buyers, encouraging them to create similar consortiums or join existing ones to help build a credible and scalable carbon removal market. The dashboard also offers insights for potential investors on how entering the market now could boost future CDR capacities.