In summary:

• • In the first half of 2025, combined nature-based and durable carbon dioxide removal offtakes totaled at least 61.5 million tonnes of CO2e, with Microsoft purchasing 91% of these credits.
• • Microsoft’s significant purchases included 43 million tCO2e from nature-based projects and just under 10 million tCO2e from BECCS projects.
• • Other notable buyers included Google, which signed 16 CDR offtakes totaling 728,300 tCO2e in 2024, and JP Morgan, which purchased both pulp and paper CCS and DAC credits.

Durable CDRs are typically technology-based solutions that capture and store carbon dioxide for at least 100 years, while nature-based removals usually have a lower permanence.

Microsoft purchased the lion’s share of removal offtakes, totaling 56.3 million tCO2e in the first six months of the year, some 91% of all long-term removal agreements. The figure is a marked increase in demand, with Microsoft having previously contracted around 30 million tCO2e by 2024.

Microsoft has a carbon-negative emissions goal for 2030 which will require large volumes of carbon credits to meet.

Nature-based removals dominate

Of the 61.5 million tCO2e of the combined offtakes in the first half of 2025, at least 43 million tCO2e were from nature-based projects, 69.9% of total purchases.

The remaining 18.5 million tCO2e were tech-based durable CDR removals.

ARR projects were the most common removals, totaling at least 31.4 million tCO2e in January-June. Removal credits from improved forest management (IFM) projects were the second most popular but lagged behind ARR at 8.4 million tCO2e.

Microsoft showed a preference for nature-based CDR procurement in the first half of the year, with 74.2%, or 41.8 million tCO2e, of all its offtakes deriving from ARR, IFM or soil carbon projects. Part of this preference is likely down to larger volumes of nature-based removal credits available compared with tech-based removals, while prices for tech-based credits are much higher.

BECCS projects pique buyer interest

On the durable CDR side, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) projects piqued buyer’s interest in the first half of 2025. BECCS purchases clocked in at just under 10 million tCO2e. Microsoft was again the largest buyer, but other notable purchases included 116,000 tCO2e by Frontier and 100,000 tCO2e by Wihlborgs.

Meanwhile, pulp and paper carbon storage offtakes totaled just over 2 million tCO2e, after Microsoft and JP Morgan both purchased from CO280’s operations.

The cost of Microsoft’s purchase was undisclosed, but JP Morgan’s 13-year offtake was sold for under $200 per tCO2e.

Elsewhere, just over 1.6 million tCO2e of biochar offtakes were agreed in the first half of the year, from buyers including Microsoft, Google, Shopify, KIRKBI, Supercritical and SAP. Market participants have increasingly looked at biochar as a potential scalable CDR solution, garnering increased interest over the past year.

Of the data collected by Fastmarkets, the cost of durable tech-based ranged dramatically.

The most expensive disclosed offtake was completed by Frontier for electrochemical direct air capture (DAC) from Phlair at $651 per tCO2e for 47,000 tCO2e.

Frontier also purchased at $419 per tCO2e for a 78,707 tCO2e offtake of enhanced rock weathering (ERW) credits. In addition, it completed a 100,000 tCO2e waste-to-energy CDR purchase at $316 per tCO2e.

However, the price of durable CDRs varies even more widely than this, with biochar credits typically trading around the mid-$100s per tCO2e, while Frontier has previously sourced credits for marine carbon removal credits through prepurchase or offtakes as high as almost $2,000 per tCO2e.

Microsoft drives bulk of demand in H1

Overall, there were 25 buyers of nature-based and durable CDR offtakes in the first half of 2025, spanning a range of industries.

While Microsoft was the most dominant purchaser, other buyers included hydrogen supplier CF Industries with its 2.3 million tCO2e capture and storage (CCS) offtake from 1PointFive in April. Finance multinational JP Morgan was also active in the first half of the year, buying a combined 500,000 tCO2e of both pulp and paper CCS and DAC credits.

Others included SkiesFifty, Supercritical, Wihlborgs, Frontier, Shopify and Mitsui.

Microsoft’s biggest deal was its 18 million tCO2e agreement with Rubicon Carbon in mid-May, which saw the delivery of high-quality credits from afforestation, reforestation and revegetation (ARR) projects over the next two decades.

Other offtakes from Microsoft included the 7 million tCO2e ARR purchase from Chestnut in January for delivery over the next 25 years, and in April it signed a 6.75 million tCO2e offtake with AtmosClear BECCS credits.

On July 10, Microsoft and Carbon Direct released their updated 2025 Criteria for High-Quality CDR, which outlines key learnings from Microsoft’s procurement and provides guidance for project developers and buyers alike.

“These updated criteria reflect our accumulated experience evaluating hundreds of CDR projects across multiple pathways and geographies,” Brian Marrs, senior director of energy markets at Microsoft, said in a press release.

“The 2025 criteria reflect the latest science and operational insights, providing a foundation for continuous improvement to help ensure that as the carbon removal market grows, it does so with integrity and transparency,” he added.

In its fifth edition, the framework introduces guidance for marine carbon removal which addresses challenges including ocean circulation modelling, biogeochemical monitoring and environmental risk management in marine environments.

The criteria also enhanced technical guidance across all forms of CDR through updating technical requirements, publishing new glossaries and clarifying a range of CDR concepts.

In addition, the criteria reaffirmed Carbon Direct’s six science-based principles: preventing social harms and providing benefits and environmental justice, avoiding environmental harm and promoting environmental benefit, ensuring carbon credits are additional and the baseline of a project is conservative estimate of what would have occurred without carbon finance, adhering to measuring, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements, ensuring the durability of stored carbon and, finally, preventing carbon leakage.

Google’s 2025 Environmental Report shows spike in CDR offtakes

In late June, tech multinational Google released its 2025 Environmental Report. The report continues to maintain that while the company’s primary focus remains on decarbonizing its operations and value chain, carbon credits will be used to neutralize remaining emissions by 2030.

In 2024, Google signed 16 new CDR offtakes, which totaled 728,300 tCO2e for $100 million overall, bringing overall carbon credits used to 782,472 tCO2e. The entirety of Google’s 2024 offtakes were from removal projects.

Google first started contracting for CDR credits in 2023, with its total offtakes amounting to 62,500 tCO2e across DAC, ERW and biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) projects.