British Airways has become the biggest carbon removal purchaser in the UK

British Airways has signed an $11m deal with CUR8 to procure 33,000 tonnes of carbon removals credits as part of a six-year offtake agreement. The deal is part of British Airways' renewed efforts to accelerate its ambitious climate action ahead of 2030.

 A carbon removal credit represents one tonne of CO₂ removed from the atmosphere which is physically stored for hundreds to thousands of years. Unlike carbon offsets that pay for the avoidance of emissions or protection of natural carbon sinks (e.g. forests), carbon removal is a new asset class that is universally recognised by scientists to be critical, alongside deep decarbonisation, to stopping climate change.  

The deal recognises the pivotal role that carbon removals will play in decarbonising aviation and similarly hard-to-abate sectors. British Airways anticipates that roughly one-third of its net-zero pathway to 2050 will be delivered through carbon removals, with the rest coming from aircraft, operational efficiencies and sustainable aviation fuels.

The investment forms part of the airline’s wider sustainability transformation plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner, which involves a renewed focus on accelerating action to 2030. While small in comparison to the airline’s total emissions, the 33,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits purchased by British Airways are crucial to stimulating the carbon removals market. This is one of the world's largest removal portfolio offtake agreements, proving the case for multi-year purchasing agreements.

British Airways joined forces with CUR8, a UK-based company specialising in sourcing the highest-quality durable carbon removal from around the world. CUR8 is the leading science, procurement, and management platform for carbon removals, combining the world's leading climate scientists and software to de-risk corporate net-zero strategies. The airline has purchased 33,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits through its removal portfolio and alongside this will use CUR8's proprietary Credit Management Platform to ensure that this landmark climate investment delivers on British Airways' sustainability goals.

CUR8 will manage the portfolio, which comprises six leading global projects each representing innovation across the carbon removal spectrum. The portfolio was sourced, evaluated and procured via CUR8’s rigorous scientific due diligence process. Each project takes a unique approach to tackle a current barrier to scaling its respective removal methods and unlock future growth. British Airways recognises the important leadership role it can play to spur market growth, by making early investments in novel carbon removal approaches to support a transition to net zero for the broader industry.

The portfolio includes a Scottish project pioneering permanent storage of whisky distillery emissions within building materials; Indian biochar initiatives with strong social and community co-benefits; a first-of-its-kind approach to stacking reforestation credits with Welsh Sequoia trees and novel ocean and river projects in North America.

In line with the Revised Oxford Offsetting Principles, which recommends that businesses counterbalance their residual emissions using high-quality carbon removals to achieve net-zero goals, British Airways has bought this portfolio with the further aim of forging strong relationships with the carbon removal projects of the future, developing vital skills for the airline's future net-zero needs, and helping to invigorate the UK and global removal market.

In addition to supporting early-stage removal innovation, British Airways is signalling its commitment to support the scale-up of mature direct air capture technology. In partnership with CUR8, it has bought removals credits from 1PointFive, a global direct air capture leader set to have the world’s first plant capable of reaching megatonne scale.