Carbon Removed Events
Until the optimal large-scale, carbon free event exists, we need to consider new ways to mitigate the damage our industry causes. This is where Carbon Removals – processes which physically extract carbon out of the air and store it durably out of harms way – come in.
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What projects do we use to remove our carbon?
Enhanced Rock Weathering
Weathering is a natural process where carbon in the atmosphere binds with silicate rock, mineralising it and locking it away for millennia. Enhanced weathering speeds up that process by using rock that has been ground down to dust and spreading it out on farmland to act as a fertiliser.
Direct Air Capture
Air is blown through machines that, through a series of chemical reactions, remove the CO2. This yields a pure, compressed stream that is mineralised and stored deep underground.
Forests
While trees alone cannot handle the amount of removals we need in the timescale required, they’re an important part of the removals mix and come with critical biodiversity co-benefits.
Construction
Trees are great capturers of carbon, but when they decompose at the end of their life or are used for making paper or energy, the CO2 is put back into the atmosphere. Using trees for durable constructions materials keeps carbon locked up, and it’s a sustainable alternative for materials like steel an cement.
Soil
Our soils are the second biggest carbon storage mechanism on the planet after the oceans, currently holding a massive 2,500 billion tonnes of carbon. Increasing agricultural soils’ ability to draw down carbon by re-wilding the soil biome is one of the most scalable approaches for carbon removal.
Biomass
Biomass such as crop and forestry residue can become a durable way of storing carbon when turned into biochar – a form of charcoal made by treating biomass in a low-oxygen, high temperature reactor. Where once the biomass would have rotted, returning its carbon to the air, biochar now locks it away for thousands of years.
Lots of these technologies need heavy investment in order to scale and provide solutions for the planet to eventually achieve net zero. Ultimately, they’re no substitution for reducing emissions, however we see benefits in pursuing both reductions AND removals simultaneously. The climate emergency demands action on all fronts, and we hope that our Carbon Removed events can be a template for the creative industry to follow in the years to come.
Our Carbon Removed Events are in association with CUR8.