Scientific consensus increasingly acknowledges that the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C is now unlikely to be achieved. However, every fraction of a degree matters. The impacts of climate change — including extreme weather events, sea level rise, and biodiversity loss — worsen with each incremental increase in global temperature.
This reality only heightens the urgency to scale carbon removal alongside rapid emissions reductions. Scaling carbon removal solutions to the gigatonne level is critical to stabilizing the climate and mitigating the most severe consequences of warming.
Progress is happening: XPRIZE Carbon Removal recently announced the winners of its $100 million competition to accelerate the path from pilot-scale projects to fully deployable systems. It provides essential funding at a pivotal moment and signals that durable, verifiable carbon removal is not just a scientific ambition but a necessary, investable part of the global climate solution set.
The program showcased real advances across four removal pathways — air, rocks, ocean, and land — with technologies like enhanced rock weathering, biomass carbon storage, and ocean alkalinity enhancement moving closer to commercial viability. The grand prize of $50 million was awarded to Mati Carbon, a Houston-based start-up working in India, Zambia, and Tanzania that provides an enhanced rock weathering (ERW) solution. Runners-up NetZero, a French biochar company operating in Brazil, Vaulted Deep, a U.S.-based waste management company, and UNDO Carbon, based in Scotland and Canada, were awarded $15 million, $8 million, and $5 million, respectively. Additionally, two XFACTOR awards of $1 million each were given to Planetary and Project Hajar.
Launched in 2021, the goal of the four-year global XPRIZE competition was to catalyze the development of a new generation of carbon removal solutions that could create high-quality and durable carbon removal credits. The competition drew more than 1,300 teams from 88 countries to create new methodologies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), setting a challenging goal of demonstrating the removal of at least 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the final year of the competition.
EcoEngineers participated in this program by providing independent third-party performance verifications for eight of the 20 finalists, including Mati Carbon and NetZero. We leveraged our extensive expertise in life-cycle analysis (LCA), carbon removal technologies, and greenhouse gas monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) to conduct a thorough evaluation of each project and confirm that the stated environmental benefits were measurable and verifiable.
Continued innovation, strong MRV frameworks, supportive policy, and investment are needed to expand these solutions and deliver carbon removals at the scale required to secure a livable future.
For more details on the winners and the competition, visit the XPRIZE website.
