Spreading crushed rock on farmland | Credit UNDO
Tech giant and enhanced rock weathering specialist agree to spread 65,000 tonnes of crushed silicate rock in the UK and Canada
Microsoft and UNDO have today inked a deal that will see 15,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere and crucial funding allocated to enhanced rock weathering (ERW) carbon removal research projects.
The announcement forms part of a wider agreement that will see UNDO spread 40,000 tonnes of crushed silicate rock in the United Kingdom and 25,000 tonnes in Canada, resulting in an estimated 15,000 tonnes of permanent CO2 removal.
As part of the deal, UNDO has partnered with a wollastonite mine based in Kingston, Ontario, which will provide the crushed rock to local farmers, and has pledged to set up new field trials and monitoring sites, including one on a research farm owned by Newcastle University.
ERW involves the acceleration of natural rock weathering processes whereby CO2 in rainwater reacts with silicate rocks such as basalt and wollastonite, mineralises, and is stored as solid carbon for hundreds of thousands of years.
To speed up this natural process, UNDO spreads crushed rock, sourced from the mining and quarrying industry on agricultural land. As the rock breaks down, it releases nutrients, raises and stabilises soil pH, and increases crop yields.
The Climate Change Committee considers carbon dioxide removal necessary to reach the UK's climate goals, with the UK government targeting at least five megatonnes of 'engineered' removals in line with the Committee's recommendation under its 2021 Net Zero Strategy.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change report has also suggested that ERW, if scaled, could remove up to four billion tonnes of CO2 per year - equivalent to 40 per cent of CO2 removal targets.
As such, today's announcement will ultimately contribute to Microsoft's commitment to become carbon-negative by 2030.
Brian Marrs, senior director of energy markets at Microsoft, said: "We are excited to support UNDO's enhanced rock weathering carbon removal projects with co-benefits for soils, farmers and rural communities.
"With this follow-on deal, we look forward to working with the UNDO team who will pioneer further deep science across different measurement techniques and at varying scales to deliver crucial ERW process data."
Since 2022, UNDO has sought to establish a range of corporate partnerships as it looks to facilitate the spreading of millions of tonnes of silicate rock each year - a first step towards billion-tonne scale operations.
The firm's commercial relationship with Microsoft began in 2023 with a contract to remove 5,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
"This agreement with Microsoft is a clear signal to the market that enhanced rock weathering has potential to deliver scalable carbon removal, and that UNDO can deliver critical scientific research to instil more confidence in this vital climate tech," said Jim Mann, CEO and founder of UNDO.
"We are eager to continue our work advancing the science of enhanced rock weathering by scaling up our research and data-gathering capabilities, which will be greatly facilitated by Microsoft's continued backing."
The update comes barely a week after UNDO secured a novel debt financing deal with major corporates including British Airways and Standard Chartered to accelerate the roll out of its ERW activities. The "global first" transaction also included a multi-year offtake deal with the corporate partners behind the deal.
In related news, the $1bn Frontier carbon removals initiative has this week facilitated $25.4m of offtake agreements with Canada-based CarbonRun to permanently remove 55,442 tons of CO2 between 2025 and 2029 through river liming projects.
River liming adds crushed up alkaline limestone to acidified rivers to repair the damage caused by acid rain. CarbonRun discovered the process boosts rivers' natural ability to extract CO2 from the air as atmospheric and land-based carbon found in rivers combines with the limestone to produce bicarbonate, which makes its way to the open ocean for permanent storage.
According to Frontier, which was launched by Alphabet, McKinsey, Meta, Shopify, and Stripe in 2022 to line up buyers for early-stage carbon removal approaches, the deal is the first carbon removal offtake to use the method.
Moreover, it claims that expanding river liming to pH-neutral rivers means the approach has the potential to reach gigaton scale. As such, Stripe has fenced off an additional $1m grant for CarbonRun to support better understanding of the potential of river liming projects to remove carbon.
The latest updates come just a day after British Airways inked an $11m deal with CUR8 to buy 33,000 tonnes of carbon removals credits as part of a six-year offtake agreement, making the carrier the airline industry's largest supporter of the nascent carbon removals industry to date, and the 'UK's largest' carbon removals buyer.
It also follows news last week that tech giant Meta had signed a long-term contract with Brazil's BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group to deliver an initial 1.3 million nature-based credits.
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