The following is an article originally published by Carbon Herald on June 25, 2025.

At the seventh edition of London Climate Action Week, ecology-focused carbon removal company Tierrasphere unveiled the world’s first carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methodology based on photosynthesis-driven oxalate-carbonate mineralization.

This groundbreaking methodology comes at a time when degrading soils already threaten food security and business resilience, and it presents a solution that restores soil vitality and ensures carbon permanence—a critical component for high-integrity CDR. 

Tierrasphere CEO Marcela Flores stated, “This methodology marks a historic step toward scalable, nature-aligned, highly durable, and verifiable carbon removal. By harnessing the elegance of photosynthesis to drive durable carbon mineralization, we’re enhancing one of Earth’s oldest biological processes into a measurable, durable, and powerful climate solution.”

The durable CDR method unlocked through photosynthesis-driven oxalate-carbonate mineralization leverages regenerative agroforestry food systems that tackle atmospheric CO2 through the naturally occurring photosynthesis process, converting carbon into stable minerals via the oxalate-carbonate pathway.

As Tierrasphere highlights, while regenerative agriculture CDR approaches sequester CO2 as soil organic matter that lacks permanence, the method of photosynthesis-powered oxalate-carbonate mineralization locks away carbon geologically, providing an energy-efficient solution that offers durability, transparency, and scalability.

In an interview with Carbon Herald, Flores points out that industrial agriculture has contributed to a nature loss of 73% since the 1970s. 

She goes on to explain that while regenerative agriculture is widely recognized as a powerful tool for addressing climate change, its reliance on organic soil carbon poses a challenge for participation in carbon markets. 

Organic carbon is inherently unstable—it is part of the natural carbon cycle and constantly in flux—making it difficult to meet the durability requirements that carbon markets demand. 

“Our approach enhances the regenerative model by integrating inorganic carbon into soil systems. Unlike organic carbon, inorganic carbon is geologically stable and far more durable, offering a new, long-term pathway for carbon sequestration. This can unlock an additional layer of profitability for regenerative farmers by enabling access to more robust, verifiable carbon credit mechanisms,” Flores adds.

Tierrasphere’s concept aims to channel new sources of finance for nature-positive interventions to restore degraded land, yet it’s not exclusively focused on that.

Flores states, “We believe that systems like ours can bring new financial mechanisms into nature, supporting positive ways to grow our food, because we might not be seeing the consequences right now, but they are coming, and they’re coming fast.”

Relevant: LENs Report Reveals Major Gains In Regenerative Agriculture Across Europe

Funded by an InnovateUK grant and support from like-minded investors, the novel methodology was co-developed with scientific rigor by Tierrasphere’s in-house research team and leading experts from the University of Zurich, the Autonomous University of Yucatan, and the British Geological Survey (BGS).

To make sure the methodology follows industry compliance standards, Tierrasphere relied on input from EcoEngineers, a clean energy consulting, auditing, and advisory company recently acquired by LRQA.

Commenting on this collaboration, EcoEngineers CEO Shashi Menon shared, “At Eco, we show clients how to take their rigorous science-based methodology and make it market-ready. Robust measurement and verification standards layered on top of science are what is needed for integrity and scalability in the carbon removal market.”

Roxby Hartley, Ph.D., Director of Climate Risk at EcoEngineers, who has co-developed the methodology, shared with Carbon Herald that this project, which took several months to complete, involved sophisticated work on differentiating inorganic and organic carbon in the methodology, as both types of CO2 require different monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) approaches and offer different forms of permanence where separate risks of reversal had to be considered.

Read more: “We Do A Great Job At Helping People Come To Market With Their Carbon Credits” – Roxby Hartley, PhD, Climate Risk Director At EcoEngineers

InnovateUK funding also enabled Tierrasphere to create a proprietary AI Engine tool that offers high-precision site selection and can serve as a valuable asset for project development in alignment with the newly released methodology. 

Flores says that this cutting-edge tool serves to flag sites that have the highest opportunity for the greatest amount of carbon removal. As she explains, to help build this tool, the Tierrasphere team looked into thousands of data points that are readily available, combining them with information from its own data points from the UK and Mexico. 

Going forward, the company intends to use technology and AI to lower the costs for MRV and measurements that determine the amount of carbon removal that has already happened.

Tierrasphere has opened a 30-day public feedback period for the methodology, ending on 25 July 2025, during which commentary can be sent to hello@tierrasphere.com. The methodology is available for download here.