Microsoft has engaged Canada’s carbon credit streaming and royalty company Carbon Streaming Corporation (NEO: NETZ) for the provision of carbon removal credits from the Waverly Biochar project in Waverly, Virginia.
The Waverly Biochar project, which is being developed by Restoration Bioproducts, involves the construction of a biochar production facility located at a wood pellet manufacturer. Biochar, short for biological charcoal, is produced by heating biomass, that is, organic feedstocks such as wood, peanut shells, manure and crop waste, in the near or total absence of oxygen, resulting in a very stable form of carbon that prevents the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for centuries, making it valuable for sequestration purposes. This process is known as pyrolysis.
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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 gigatns of carbon emissions by 2050, equivalent to between two and four and a half years of Canada’s 2021 carbon emissions.
The Waverly initiative is expected to deliver up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits per year towards Microsoft’s carbon-negative target.
“We’re pleased to work with Carbon Streaming to support the development of biochar as a carbon removal approach through the Waverly Biochar project,” Brian Marrs, senior director of energy and carbon for Microsoft, said in a media statement. “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.”
Carbon Streaming said that its approach provides capital to project developers, enabling them to accelerate their projects. This also benefits corporations using carbon credits as part of their climate strategies. Rather than having to provide upfront capital to climate projects, corporatins can instead commit to purchasing the verified removal upon issuance.
“This relationship between Carbon Streaming, project developers and corporate end users aims to remove a key barrier to corporate action – the internal ability to invest upfront,” the Ontario-based firm noted in the press release.