Deep Sky Receives First Pre-Issuance DAC Rating

Pre-Issuance Rating for Deep Sky One Follows New DAC-Specific Integrity Framework with Sylvera

Deep Sky, the world’s first technology-agnostic carbon removal project developer, has received an AAA-A Pre-Issuance Rating from Sylvera for its upcoming Deep Sky One direct air capture (DAC) facility. This is the first Pre-Issuance Rating Sylvera has issued for a Direct Air Capture project, and the result of a long-term development of a rating framework calibrated specifically to the unique risks and requirements of DAC.

Pre-Issuance Ratings assess projects that are still in development, giving buyers and investors an independent view of both the integrity of the planned carbon removals and the project’s ability to deliver them. For large-scale DAC projects, where significant investment and offtake decisions can be made years before a facility begins issuing credits, that provides an important early signal of project quality and delivery risk.

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“We’ve already demonstrated at Deep Sky Alpha that we can move from project development to real-world delivery, including issuing North America’s first certified DAC carbon removal credits. This rating means we can bring that same focus on integrity and execution to Deep Sky One before the project is operational, giving buyers and investors an independent view of both the quality of the project and our ability to deliver at scale,” said Charlie Renzoni, Vice President, Carbon Markets at Deep Sky.

As Deep Sky’s second facility and one of the largest DAC projects in development globally, Deep Sky One provided an opportunity to apply Sylvera’s DAC-specific framework at meaningful scale and demonstrate how independent integrity and delivery assessments can support the next generation of DAC projects.

“DAC is one of the most important tools we have for addressing legacy emissions, but the market needs a shared standard for what a credible DAC project looks like. Our work with Deep Sky gives the market a real reference point,” said Hugo Lakin, CDR Lead at Sylvera.

A Quality Marker for the Industry

The Pre-Issuance Rating evaluates a project’s carbon accounting, additionality, and permanence - the core pillars of Sylvera’s Integrity Module - alongside a Delivery Risk assessment of the project's ability to deliver the credits it forecasts. Deep Sky One’s AAA-A rating reflects low integrity risk overall, with very low additionality risk given DAC’s dependence on carbon credit revenue and strong performance across carbon accounting and permanence criteria.

The framework developed through this process is designed to be replicable across the DAC sector, giving other developers a credible, independent path to demonstrating project integrity as the technology scales.

This comes at a pivotal moment for the durable carbon removal market. As buyers grow more selective and demand consolidates around fewer, larger commitments, third-party integrity signals are becoming increasingly central to how carbon removal projects secure financing and offtake agreements.

“The DAC market is still nascent, and buyers need to know that projects can actually deliver with integrity. Pre-issuance Ratings provide buyers with a clear view of how a DAC developer is accounting for the risks involved in FOAK projects,” Hugo Lakin, CDR Lead, Sylvera

About Sylvera

Sylvera is a leading carbon market intelligence and ratings company, providing independent, data-driven assessments of carbon credit quality and project integrity. Sylvera’s Pre-Issuance and post-issuance ratings help buyers, investors, and project developers navigate the carbon market with confidence. Learn more at sylvera.com.

About Deep Sky

Montreal-based Deep Sky is the world’s first tech-agnostic carbon removal project developer aiming to remove gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere and permanently store it underground. As a project developer, Deep Sky brings together the most promising direct air and ocean carbon capture companies under one roof to bring the largest supply of high quality carbon credits to the market, commercializing and catalyzing carbon removal and storage solutions like never before. With $130M in funding, Deep Sky is backed by world class investors including Investissement Québec, Brightspark Ventures, Whitecap Venture Partners, OMERS Ventures, BDC Climate Fund, Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, BMO, National Bank of Canada, and more. deepskyclimate.com