Green carbon removal, a €429 billion opportunity
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), the process of removing and storing CO₂ from air and oceans, is gaining increasing global attention, including recently in the Netherlands. Sophie Hermans, the Dutch Minister of Climate and Green Growth, recently presented a comprehensive roadmap, while the Province of Gelderland, in collaboration with other provinces, conducted a market exploration. These developments are essential for addressing climate challenges and provide solutions to urgent policy issues such as nitrogen emissions and water quality. If Dutch governments make the right decisions now, carbon sequestration could deliver a societal value of at least €429 billion by 2050.
Entrepreneurs in the CDR sector, organised in the Climate Cleanup Foundation, welcome this growing attention. Informed by practice, they advocate for integrated solutions. By promoting local carbon sequestration, climate policies can simultaneously contribute to a sustainable economy, housing development, soil and water quality, and public health. Green carbon sequestration also offers a key solution to the nitrogen problem.
The Government’s Role in Carbon Sequestration
Hermans’ roadmap clearly outlines the necessity of carbon sequestration and assigns a significant role to the government. This policy fosters reliability through European certification and financial support for scaling up sequestration efforts. However, the ministry primarily engages the private sector through emissions “compensation” mechanisms. This approach is controversial because it overly emphasizes technologies aligned with fossil fuel interests. Why shouldn’t carbon sequestration be funded as a public utility (using funds collected from polluters), similar to highways or dikes? After all, sequestration is critical to preventing uncontrollable climate change, regardless of whether companies are willing to pay.
In contrast to Hermans’ roadmap, the provincial market exploration uses the term “carbon sequestration” (koolstofvastlegging) rather than “carbon removal (koostofverwijdering).” This terminology better emphasizes value creation: CO₂ is actively stored in materials such as timber construction, soils, and oceans. This approach fundamentally differs from CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), which involves capturing emissions during fossil fuel energy production.
Green vs. Gray Methods of Carbon Sequestration
The provincial market exploration distinguishes between “gray” and “green” methods for carbon sequestration. Gray methods include industrial techniques like BECCS (Bio-Energy with CCS) and DACCS/DOCCS (Direct Air/Ocean CCS: mechanical removal and storage of CO₂ from air or oceans). Examples include biomass plants with additional capture installations, machines that filter CO₂ directly from the air, and electrochemical processes in oceans. These gray techniques currently require significant innovation, energy, and investment while offering limited direct benefits for other policy areas such as nitrogen reduction.
Green, nature-based solutions include forestry, soil restoration, biobased construction materials, regenerative agriculture, and innovations like accelerated weathering of rocks, biochar, and active peatland restoration. These green methods can already be implemented today and offer clear synergies with other policies related to agriculture, housing development, and nature restoration.
Missed Opportunities in Agriculture
Notably, the ministry pays less attention to carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and regenerative farming methods—a missed opportunity. Regenerative agriculture provides farmers with new revenue streams through fiber production for biobased construction materials while achieving significant nitrogen reductions. Soils under regenerative agriculture can store up to ten times more carbon than conventionally managed soils, as demonstrated by companies like Ketelbroek Food Forest and regenerative farm Horaholm.
Recent calculations by PBL (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) indicate that nitrogen emissions must be reduced not by 40% but by 80%, making fundamental agricultural transformation unavoidable. This presents an opportunity to shift from an outdated agricultural model reliant on pesticides and fertilizers to versatile regenerative practices that produce both healthy food and construction materials.
Opportunities in Construction
The construction sector is also taking biobased materials increasingly seriously. Companies like Ballast Nedam demonstrate that buildings can store CO₂ (“Construction Stored Carbon”). This creates a unique opportunity for collaboration between agricultural, environmental, and housing policies: farmers produce construction materials with minimal nitrogen emissions while builders create sustainable homes.
Enormous Societal Value
The societal value of these efforts is immense. According to German calculations, each ton of CO₂ in the atmosphere costs society €875 due to climate damages such as dike reinforcements or storm damage. Actively storing CO₂ in soils and construction materials prevents these costs while generating economic benefits from food and material production. With, according to the provincial market exploration, a potential of 490 megatons of CO₂ sequestration in the Netherlands by 2050, this societal value amounts to €429 billion — not even counting additional benefits for farmers, builders, nature restoration efforts, and future generations.