Carbon Removal Standards Initiative

Overview

The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI), a US-based initiative fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit Carbon180. This is one of a series of ecosystem grants supporting foundational work to unlock innovative policy approaches for durable CDR demand.

CRSI falls within our philanthropic strategy of carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Please see Giving Green’s deep dive report on CDR for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2024

What is the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI)?

The Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI) was launched in 2024 to provide technical assistance to NGOs and policymakers on CDR quantification standards applicable across industries and jurisdictions. Foundational to CRSI’s mission is the belief that long-term demand for CDR services will be driven by policy. To achieve gigaton scale, CDR must be embedded across industries and policy mechanisms, necessitating context-driven quantification standards.

What are we funding at CRSI, and how could it help scale demand for CDR?

We are funding CRSI to support its ongoing and future work on developing and shaping standards to match the needs and opportunities of a diverse array of policy vehicles. Given that current demand is driven by credit-based carbon markets, especially the voluntary market, the development of requisite standards and quantification frameworks has largely reflected the needs and the structures of corporations currently buying carbon removal credits. However, these tools may not be directly transferable or applicable to more policy-driven approaches, and creating fit-for-purpose standards will help to unlock demand outside of existing market regimes. CRSI’s portfolio of ongoing and planned projects includes:

Learning from industry case studies: CRSI is studying how standards development happened in other emerging technology areas, e.g., bioinformatics, soil carbon, USDA organic, telecom, and low-carbon construction materials, to determine relevant successes and failure modes and inform the organization’s strategy and tactics for the next one to three years.

Expanding viable policy contexts for enhanced rock weathering (ERW): CRSI is working to create a framework for jurisdictional-level monitoring of carbon removal through ERW on agricultural lands to fit pay-for-practice subsidies. The existing quantification standards were developed for per-ton attribution of removal to a specific supplier; tailoring standards for other contexts could significantly reduce cost and accelerate the speed of deployment.

Analyzing the impact of differing methodologies on net removal quantification and improving consistency across jurisdictions: CRSI plans to conduct a comparative analysis of methodologies to assess differences in boundary setting and net removal quantification. For example, it will analyze the impact of different energy accounting methodologies embedded in direct air capture (DAC) regulations across jurisdictions. Given the difficulty of intra- and inter-governmental coordination on methodology development, CRSI’s work will support improved coordination and reduced barriers to commercialization.  

Increasing transparency of data and information: Increased transparency and accessibility of data and information underpinning CDR standards and research at large will improve rigor, build trust, and accelerate deployment. CRSI plans to identify copyright and IP barriers to accessing CDR standards and develop recommendations to eliminate these barriers and improve access.

Why do we think CRSI will use this funding well? 

Given that CRSI launched in 2024, we do not have a track record to assess. However, we are excited by its choice to focus on an impact area that we think holds high potential for impact yet remains underexplored, the experience of its leadership, and its portfolio of ongoing and planned projects.

Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our top nonprofits. For a number of reasons, we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.