Carbon Removal Has a Buyer Problem. CUR8 and Isometric Are Fixing It.

Corporate demand for carbon removal is growing fast, but the market has a structural flaw: one company accounted for 93% of all carbon removal credits purchased globally in fiscal year 2025. Hundreds of companies with net zero targets still cannot figure out how to buy in. CUR8 and Isometric just launched a portfolio built to change that.

>> In Other News: [x](x)

Who Is Actually Buying Carbon Removals Right Now?

Mostly, one company. Microsoft purchased 45 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide removal credits in fiscal year 2025. That single buyer accounted for 93% of global CDR demand that year, according to research by BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

The rest of the market split the remaining share. Frontier Climate, a coalition backed by JPMorgan, Stripe, Meta, and Alphabet, accounted for roughly 4% of contracted removals. All other buyers combined represented about 17.5% of total CDR purchases to date, according to CDR.fyi data.

Those 45 million metric tonnes equal the emissions from approximately 9.8 million internal combustion vehicles driven for one year, per Microsoft's own environmental sustainability reporting. Microsoft contracted that volume across 21 companies in more than 10 countries, spanning direct air capture, BECCS, biochar, enhanced weathering, and afforestation.

Global CDR demand reached 57 million metric tonnes in 2025, double the 2024 total, according to BloombergNEF and BCSE. That growth is real. But 45 of those 57 million tonnes came from one buyer. The concentration gap makes the market fragile in a way that most corporate climate commitments have not yet reckoned with.

>> RELATED: Microsoft's Carbon Removal Pause Puts a One-Buyer Market to the Test

Why Are Other Corporate Buyers Struggling to Enter?

Carbon removal markets are technically complex. A company without a dedicated climate science team has little way to assess whether a credit is real, durable, and likely to be delivered on time. There are over 20 CDR methods and more than 2,000 project developers active in the market today. Without deep expertise, procurement is nearly impossible to do with confidence.

That complexity has produced a two-tier market. Large buyers like Microsoft build internal review teams, evaluate projects independently, and contract at megatonne scale. Everyone else stalls, unable to distinguish genuinely durable credits from lower-quality alternatives.

The problem is compounded on the supply side. CUR8's in-house climate science team reviews every project it encounters and finds that only 5% meet its due diligence threshold. Quality supply is scarce, and most corporate buyers have no way to find it without building costly internal infrastructure first.

New buyers did enter the market in 2025. ByteDance purchased over 100,000 metric tonnes through Rubicon Carbon. JPMorgan Chase contracted more than 520,000 metric tonnes in total. Roughly half of first-half 2025 buyers were first-timers, according to CDR.fyi. But without simpler procurement pathways, that buyer base cannot grow fast enough to distribute the market's risk.

What Is the CUR8 + Isometric 2030 Portfolio?

CUR8 and Isometric launched their joint 2030 Portfolio in April 2026, targeting the procurement gap that keeps smaller buyers out of the market. The portfolio aggregates six pre-vetted CDR projects across five removal pathways: biochar, bio-oil, biomass geological storage, subsurface biomass storage, and wastewater alkalinity enhancement.

Each project has already passed CUR8's in-house evaluation process, which combines climate science with AI-powered risk modeling. CUR8 assesses durability, permanence, and delivery likelihood before any project enters the portfolio. Corporate buyers access that analysis without needing to replicate it themselves.

Every credit generated through the portfolio will be independently certified by Isometric and listed on its public registry. Isometric charges fees to buyers rather than project developers, structurally separating its revenue from the number of credits it issues. That design reduces the financial incentive to inflate credit quality that has historically undermined trust in voluntary carbon markets.

The dual-layer structure is the key design choice here. CUR8 handles technical due diligence. Isometric handles independent certification. A corporate buyer gets both layers of scrutiny behind every credit without paying for either team internally. CUR8 also provides active portfolio management, real-time reporting, and a single contracting relationship with flat-rate transaction fees.

Which Projects Are in the Portfolio?

The 2030 Portfolio spans geographies and technologies. Here is what each project does and where it operates.

Project / Company	CDR Pathway	Location	Verified Detail
Graphyte (Loblolly Project)	Biomass geological storage (BiCRS)	Pine Bluff, Arkansas, U.S.	First project of its kind certified by Isometric; 15,151 tonnes listed on the Isometric Registry (Isometric Registry, 2026)
Vaulted Deep	Subsurface biomass storage	Hutchinson, Kansas, U.S.	Operational since 2023; certified by Isometric; signed a $58.3 million offtake with Frontier Climate for 152,480 metric tonnes through 2027 (Canary Media, 2024)
Charm Industrial	Bio-oil geological storage	Kansas, Colorado, U.S.	Converts farm and forestry residues into carbon-rich bio-oil via fast pyrolysis, then injects into EPA-regulated wells for permanent geological storage
CREW	Wastewater alkalinity enhancement	New England, U.S.	Deploys alkalinity enhancement across municipal wastewater treatment plants, converting existing infrastructure into carbon removal systems
Carboneers	Biochar	Ghana and India	Works with smallholder farming communities to convert agricultural waste into biochar; uses mobile-app-based digital MRV for traceability; validated by Isometric (Isometric Registry, 2026)

The mix of technologies and geographies is intentional. Diversification reduces delivery risk without adding complexity for the buyer. CUR8 manages the portfolio relationship, active reporting, and ongoing risk assessment so corporate buyers do not have to.

How Does Verification Actually Work Here?

Verification is where most corporate buyers get stuck. Voluntary carbon markets have faced criticism over credit quality, and buyers without scientific expertise often cannot tell strong verification from weak certification.

Isometric addresses that gap with a public registry and an in-house science team, supported by a network of more than 400 scientists and partners across the value chain, according to its website. Every credit certified by Isometric is publicly documented on its registry, meaning any buyer or external auditor can inspect the underlying evidence. Isometric charges fees to buyers rather than project developers, which removes the financial incentive to issue more credits than are actually warranted.

CUR8's due diligence layer runs before certification. Its climate science team evaluates each project for durability, permanence, and likelihood of on-time delivery, using AI-powered risk modeling. That analysis is what CUR8 describes as investment-grade due diligence. The 2030 Portfolio packages that work into an included feature, so buyers do not need to commission it separately.

Does the Market Have Enough Buyers to Keep Growing?

The data gives a mixed answer. The durable CDR market crossed 1 million metric tonnes in actual deliveries in 2025, spread across 521 purchasers from 35 countries and 117 suppliers in more than 28 nations, according to CDR.fyi. That is a real, functioning market by any reasonable standard.

But Microsoft alone contracted 45 million metric tonnes in FY2025, while the rest of the market delivered 1 million combined. The concentration gap is still very wide. CDR.fyi co-founder Tank Chen noted that delivery rates to buyers other than Microsoft and Frontier are rising steadily, which points to growing buyer confidence as suppliers prove they can deliver reliably at scale.

Policy is beginning to add a demand floor. Canada became the first national government to launch a dedicated CDR procurement program, committing at least CAD $10 million across direct air capture, BECCS, biochar, and other removal pathways. The EU's Industrial Carbon Management Strategy and the UK's Greenhouse Gas Removal business model are also taking shape as public demand sources. The 45Q tax credit for carbon management, which offers up to $180 per metric tonne for direct air capture, was preserved in recent U.S. legislation (Latitude Media, 2026).

Price trends also favor buyers who act now. CUR8 projects that high-durability removal prices could rise up to 40% by 2035, in line with demand spikes as corporate net zero timelines converge on 2030. Locking in supply through multi-year offtakes hedges against that risk.

The Market's Next Phase Depends on Who Enters Next

The direction is clear even if the pace is uncertain. Carbon removal is moving from a specialty purchase made by a handful of tech giants into a standard line item in corporate sustainability planning. The market needs more buyers, lower barriers to entry, and more reliable verification, all at the same time.

The CUR8 + Isometric 2030 Portfolio is one attempt to compress that process for companies ready to move now. It bundles five CDR pathways, six verified projects, independent certification, active portfolio management, and a single contracting point into one accessible product. Global CDR demand hit 57 million metric tonnes in 2025, double the year before. The 93% concentration problem is also real. Both things are true, and closing the gap between them is what the next phase of this market depends on.