CDR is a complex scientific endeavour. That's why a premium approach to issuance matters

Carbon dioxide removal is not a theoretical exercise. It is an attempt to translate some of the most demanding science on earth into real, verifiable outcomes at real projects in the field, run by real teams, under real operational pressures.

Weather changes. Equipment fails. Supply chain setbacks. Variables can multiply. No two projects are identical, even when they work to the same methodology. That is the nature of running CDR projects in the field, and it matters for how we think about certification.

This complexity needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves, ensuring that issuance receives "premium" attention. This doesn't mean premium price. It means that the rigour of certification is determined by science and enshrined in integrity. It means scientists with a background in specific methodologies examining every project closely even before an audit is conducted, because even within a single methodology, the operational reality of each project requires individual scrutiny. The first audit of a project in particular demands a closer review before and during the audit, given it's brand new, and needs to be carefully understood by specialists in minute detail.

Defining a premium approach

What does this look like in practice? It means methodology transparency and conservative quantification with independent third-party verification at every stage. It means full lifecycle traceability and contractual permanence, in our case, storage of no less than 100 years, in line with IPCC guidance.

It means taking the time to get the certification right should come first. There are always variables outside anyone's control: operational setbacks, shifts in conditions on the ground, changes in feedstock, and many other unforeseen issues that take time to resolve properly. We treat those moments as signals to take a closer look.

That kind of integrity and scrutiny should not be viewed as an obstacle. It is something that the market has come to recognise. Trust, once established, should never be taken for granted. In a market where the credibility of a credit is inseparable from the credibility of the process that produced it, trust lost is not easily recovered. We have seen what happens in other corners of the VCM when trust erodes. The cost of getting it wrong, reputational, contractual, regulatory, falls on everyone.

Balancing rigour with speed

Time to issuance is, of course, crucial. Developers rely on this to finance projects and scale their operations. Innovations, both to technologies and processes, exist today to streamline the path to issuance and support a premium approach to certification.

What was once a process driven by manual scheduling and fragmented communication is becoming more structured, visible, and predictable each day. Activities such as Preliminary Assessments mean that suppliers arrive at formal audits in a stronger position: data delivered for verification is cleaner, questions are resolved earlier, and the overall certification journey is de-risked from the outset.

Our recently launched Audit Booking Calendar gives suppliers real-time visibility into their audit scheduling and timelines, replacing manual coordination with a structured, dynamic, centralised platform, helping us to ensure auditors are ready when needed. Puro Issuance Plus enables eligible suppliers to move to higher-frequency, batch-based issuance cycles, when they want to issue, not at a time mandated by us. This shortens the path from verified removal to issued credit, and from issued credit to revenue.

For buyers and investors, these tools provide something equally valuable: a clear picture of where a credit is in the issuance process, what the timeline looks like, and when delivery can be expected.

The results are measurable. In the early days of CDR, when the market was more nascent with relatively few participants, project certification used to take several months, sometimes up to a year from registration to issuance. Today, there are still cases where operational realities lead to delays out of our influence; nonetheless we're proud to say that with more than 100 certified projects, on average, our certified suppliers now move through the certification process in around a month. Project developers working with us at industrial scale and issuing on a monthly basis undergo the process in as little as a week.

That is not a concession on rigour. It is evidence that rigour, when properly supported by infrastructure and clear processes, does not have to mean delays. The goal is a certification journey that reflects the actual complexity of the project, rather than one inflated by avoidable friction along the way.

The business case

For suppliers, the commercial logic of this approach is straightforward. Lenders and infrastructure funds applying project finance-grade diligence need to know that the path to revenue is predictable. That requires a certification infrastructure they can model, one with standardised processes, auditable outcomes, and a track record.

A robust certification journey, starting with preliminary assessments and work done upfront, will mean that any given issuance will have often already survived the questions a sophisticated buyer's due diligence team will ask when approaching a transaction, both for forward commitments and for spot purchases. Getting this right will allow suppliers to reach financial investment decision, secure financing, and build the revenue predictability that enables projects to scale.

For buyers, the case is equally clear. The most sophisticated procurement teams in the market are conducting more rigorous pre-purchase scrutiny than ever. They are not simply looking for CDR credits that pass a threshold. They are looking for processes they can trust, pipelines they can plan around, and suppliers they can return to at greater scale.

Premium issuance is not a one-time quality signal. It is the foundation of the kind of buyer relationship that compounds over time: where confidence in the certification pathway, combined with transparency into the supply pipeline, produces the procurement certainty that serious programmes require.

Independent validation matters too, not as a regulatory requirement, but as evidence that what the VCM has built stands up to external scrutiny. Initiatives such as the ICVCM give important recognition to the work that is being done by voluntary market standards and registries.

Issuance: where science meets the market

The science underpinning CDR is complex and constantly evolving. The companies bringing it to life are operating across wildly different environments, different geographies, different technologies, different operational realities, and doing so at the frontier of what is currently possible.

That diversity and ambition deserves to be taken seriously, not pushed into a process optimised for speed and automation. AI tools have real potential here, and their application to certification tasks will only grow, particularly where patterns are established and baselines are known. We are already starting to see the benefits of applying these tools for specific use cases at Puro.earth. But the first audit of a new facility, with a new operational profile, still requires something no algorithm can replace: expert interpretation of novel circumstances and approaches.

The issuance process is where the science meets the market, and how rigorously that translation is made determines whether the market can be trusted. Prioritising speed over rigour does not just risk lower quality credits. It risks losing the buyer confidence on which the entire enterprise depends. We do not believe those two things need to be in tension. But getting the balance right starts with respecting the complexity, and this is where I believe a premium approach to issuance can help.

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