Durable CDR Market Recap: May 2026 — Key Deals & Trends

We are back with another edition of the CDR Monthly Recap, a monthly round-up of some of the top news, developments, and market updates from the world of durable carbon removal.

April saw around 1.49 million tonnes contracted, led by deals that saw participation from market actors such as Stockholms stad, Stockholm Exergi, Microsoft, BioCirc and Boeing.

New projects, partnerships, and large funding opportunities, as well as announcements, continue to drive momentum for the industry ahead, alongside various events in the field.

Read on to learn more below!

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Deals and Partnerships

[Image source:Stockholm Exergi]

Deals

The City of Stockholm (Stockholms stad) signed a 15-year agreement to purchase 750,000 tonnes of durable CDR from Stockholm Exergi's BECCS Stockholm facility, as part of its goal of becoming climate positive by 2030.

Denmark-based BECCS company BioCirc signed a 7-year offtake agreement with Microsoft for up to 650,000 tonnes of CDR. The tonnes will be captured by BioCirc across 5 biogas plants and delivered over 7 years from the second half of 2026.

Lufthansa Group publicly disclosed its 14-project climate portfolio, with durable CDR now accounting for 20% of its portfolio, double the previous share, including a multi-year offtake via Senken with Deep Sky and Exomad Green.

Partnerships

OSCAR launched the Swiss jurisdiction version of its standard CDR purchasing agreement at Climate Week Zurich, developed in partnership with Wenger Vieli, providing a market-tested contractual baseline for Swiss-domiciled CDR transactions.

A Healthier Earth launched the world's first integrated CDR platform from the data center sector, providing hyperscalers and institutional buyers with scalable, Isometric-certified biochar credits supported by Mangrove Systems' dMRV software.

Supercritical signed an exclusive agreement with Varaha to distribute 10,000 tonnes of its biochar credits available in 2026. The credits are the first to be certified under Isometric's Distributed Biochar Module v1.1.

2026 Durable CDR Pricing Survey results are out!
Explore insights from the Durable CDR Pricing Survey, conducted in partnership with OPIS, to help market participants better understand pricing expectations for durable CDR credits.

Projects

[Image source: Sirona Technologies]

Sirona Technologies unveiled Project Furu, a commercial-scale direct air capture project in Øygarden, Norway, targeting 10,000 tonnes per year by 2029 and positioning explicitly for credits under the EU's Carbon Removal Certification Framework.

Octavia Carbon and Cella successfully completed an early-stage underground CO₂ injection in Kenya's Rift Valley, marking the fourth known instance globally of a DAC and geological storage system reaching this milestone.

Germany launched an initiative to develop CDR projects across 3 African countries, providing technical and financial support to advance CDR deployment and capacity building across the continent.

Exomad Green surpassed 2.3 million tonnes of durable CDR sold and over 342,000 tonnes delivered to date, cementing its position as the world's largest cumulative deliverer of durable carbon removal, as tracked by CDR.fyi.

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Financing

[Image source: Emissions Reduction Alberta]

Emissions Reduction Alberta opened a C$50 million funding call to support pilot, demonstration, and first-of-kind commercial projects across Alberta's industrial sectors, with industry-integrated CDR explicitly listed as a priority technology area.

CREW Carbon secured a $25 million funding ($19 million in equity and $6 million in grant and other non-dilutive funding) to scale its technology that improves wastewater treatment and removes CO2 as the company moves toward commercial-scale deployment.

The California Energy Commission opened a $11 million grant funding round for pre-commercial direct air capture demonstration projects, under its Carbon Removal Innovation Support Program, with applications closing July 31, 2026.

Arca secured up to C$2 million in funding from Canada's National Research Council Industrial Research Assistance Program to advance its proprietary technology from laboratory scale to first-of-kind field deployment using mine tailings and steel slag.

The Green Finance Institute's CDR Catalyst launched in May, securing a £1 million loan from Oxbury Bank to support Cornwall-based biochar developer Restord, enabled by philanthropic capital from Terraset and strategic advisory from Milkywire.

Mitsui & Co.'s Co-creation Fund awarded a ¥100 million grant to Planet Savers, a Tokyo-based DAC startup using University of Tokyo zeolite synthesis technology to develop a fully electric, water-free CO₂ capture system.

CDR marketplace Supercritical secured new funding led by Greencode Ventures to expand carbon removal supply development, scaling projects and enabling commercialization.

Wren launched its 2026 Open Call for Proposals, offering grants of $100,000–$500,000 across categories, including policy initiatives working on greenhouse gas reductions and carbon removal, with applications accepted on a rolling basis until June 30, 2026.

The Carbon Business Council and regional industry leaders published the Latin America Carbon Removal Investment Roadmap, outlining the financial structures, risk allocation mechanisms, and policy signals to scale CDR across the region.

Research and Reports

[Image source: Counteract]

Counteract launched a tool to examine how carbon delivery curves - the timing and volume of credits over a project's lifetime - materially affect cost of capital and overall financial viability for different durable CDR methods and project structures.

The Carbon Business Council published findings from a survey, revealing that most companies expect to use CDR for residual emissions but cite policy uncertainty, cost, and reputational risk as the primary barriers to earlier purchasing.

Mati Carbon launched an open-source Field Project Result Explorer Tool providing transparent public access to its enhanced weathering field data and carbon removal measurement results across project sites in India, Zambia, and Tanzania.

Cascade Climate launched the Bedrock Initiative, a global coordinated research programme to generate the agronomic and CDR evidence needed to bring enhanced weathering into compliance markets and government agricultural programs.

Carbon to Sea and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation announced funding recipients for two research projects investigating the impact of ocean alkalinity enhancement on commercially and culturally important marine species.

The American Carbon Registry (ACR) updated its Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) methodology (Version 2.0) to broaden eligibility for CDR projects in the US and Canada including BECCS, DAC, BiCRS in the new coverage.

Ocean Conservancy, alongside 8 other NGOs, published a set of recommendations for responsible marine CDR field experiments, calling for independent MRV, open-access data, and a prohibition on early carbon credit sales from trials.

Carbon Gap and Sweco published a Carbon Removal Readiness Assessment for Poland, showing potential to remove 85 MtCO₂ annually by 2050 while warning of risks without national CDR targets or strategy.

ClimeFi published a guide to corporate net zero claims for CDR buyers, helping organizations navigate the evolving landscape of climate commitments, credit use frameworks, and disclosure requirements as SBTi Version 2.0 approaches finalisation.

Carbon Direct, in collaboration with Microsoft and Stripe, released a guide for sourcing agricultural biomass for CDR, establishing principles for traceability, soil health, community protection, and market integrity in CDR procurement.

The Carbon Removal India Alliance (CRIA) and BioFlux published a report on scaling biochar CDR in India, covering feedstock availability, supply chain development, MRV frameworks, and the role of domestic and international demand in financing project growth.

Carbon Gap and Carbon Management Europe published a discussion paper outlining design options for an EU Carbon Removal Buyers’ Club, which has aimed to aggregate demand and unlock financing for CDR projects in Europe.

Abatable published a whitepaper examining how corporate buyers can build resilient CDR portfolios, covering method diversification, delivery risk management, pricing strategy, and the role of integrity standards in structuring long-term procurement.

RMI published a brief highlighting three demand trends - credit purchasing, differentiated low-carbon products, and co-product services -showing how diverse pathways can strengthen CDR beyond voluntary credit markets and accelerate scale.

Climeworks published a report examining CDR trends across Europe, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, finding that buyer participation is broadening and that the EU, Switzerland, and UK are demonstrating policy leadership in durable CDR.

Leaderboard Updates - May 2026

Around 1.49 million tonnes of durable CDR were contracted in May following April that saw around 1.14 million tonnes contracted.

Listed below are the May leaderboards for top suppliers and purchasers:

Supplier Leaderboard

Purchaser Leaderboard

CDR.fyi Updates and Research - May 2026

2026 Q1 Durable CDR Market Update - From Promise to Proof

In May, we published the 2026 Q1 Durable CDR Market Update, analyzing key trends from the durable CDR market. Q1 2026 was the largest opening quarter on record for durable CDR, with 2.3 million tonnes contracted - 560% of Q1 2025 volume.

145K tonnes were delivered in Q1, up 67% year on year and the second-highest quarter on record, representing a growing proportion at 6.3% of contracted volume. Biochar accounted for 93% of contracted volume, with two of the top five suppliers being first-time market participants.The blog post is an abridged version of the comprehensive edition exclusive to our Data Partners and Platform Subscribers. For access to the full report or further information, kindly contact us at partners@cdr.fyi.
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Disclosure

CDR.fyi is a public benefit corporation operating globally. The company has numerous contributors, some of whom are affiliated with companies in the industry, including Milkywire, CDRJobs, DVNE, and ETH. Data and content published by CDR.fyi, including This Week in CDR, this Monthly Update, and our Quarterly Market Updates, are vetted and reviewed by CDR.fyi representatives with no conflict of interest.

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