The CDR Buyer's Guide: An Interactive Guide for Purchasing High Integrity Carbon Dioxide Removals
As carbon dioxide removal (CDR) becomes an essential component of credible net-zero strategies, many organizations are seeking clear and practical guidance on how to engage with this rapidly evolving market in a responsible and high-integrity way.
Purpose of the Guide
The CDR Buyer's Guide is designed to provide a neutral, end-to-end framework for organizations that are considering or already purchasing CDR. It walks buyers through the full procurement journey — from understanding why CDR is needed, to defining a purchase strategy, understanding CDR methods and MRV, accessing supply through different channels, executing contracts, and reporting and managing credits after purchase.
Building on Existing Work
This Guide builds on and complements a growing body of existing work in the ecosystem. We acknowledge the valuable contributions of other CDR buyer resources, including guidance developed by Frontier, Microsoft and Carbon Direct, Milkywire, Carbonfuture, and the South Pole and the WBCSD. The aim of this Guide is not to replace these efforts, but to consolidate key concepts and decisions into a single, coherent framework that supports buyers across different levels of experience.
Approach
The Guide is intentionally technology-neutral and supplier-neutral. It does not promote specific projects or rank approaches. Instead, it focuses on the decisions, trade-offs, and quality considerations that matter across methods and procurement pathways, drawing on climate science, emerging regulation, and market best practices.
A Living Resource
Like OSCAR, the CDR Buyer's Guide is intended to be a living, wiki-style resource. It is designed to support sustainability leaders, first-time buyers, and experienced purchasers alike — particularly those navigating CDR procurement without extensive in-house technical or contracting expertise — and to evolve over time as the market, standards, and policy landscape continue to mature.