Sustainability In Your Ear: Carbonfuture Counts The Pace Of Carbon Removal

Mitch Ratcliffe 0:00 Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are on our beautiful planet. Welcome to Sustainability in Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon neutral society. And I am your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation.

Today, we're going to be talking about climate action and the variety of ways that we can cut emissions and begin to draw down CO2. You know, we're entering a decisive decade for climate action when cutting emissions won't be enough, and to avoid catastrophic warming, we need to pull billions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere permanently. But as we've heard here over the years, the carbon removal industry is still in its infancy, grappling with tough questions about legitimacy, scalability and accountability.

At the center of this emerging field is a less visible but absolutely essential layer - the infrastructure that tracks, verifies and certifies whether carbon has actually been removed and stays removed. It's a technical challenge, but also a political and philosophical one. Who decides what counts as real removal? Whose data gets trusted? And how do we make sure that the tools we build to measure carbon don't simply entrench new power dynamics in the name of climate progress?

Our guest today is Hannes Junginger-Gestrich. He is CEO of Carbonfuture, a company helping to define the carbon removal monitoring, reporting and verification infrastructure. Launched about five years ago, Carbonfuture now plays a central role in connecting carbon removal companies pursuing diverse approaches like biochar, enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture, with buyers of carbon credits looking to meet their climate commitments.

Carbonfuture offers a digital platform that integrates data from across the carbon removal life cycle in companies and across their supply chains, supporting both cutting edge automation and more manual natural approaches to carbon drawdown. It's one of the few companies building the connective tissue that could turn carbon removal from a scattered effort into a functioning ecosystem scale.

However, it will face new challenges as corporate demand for verified carbon removal grows and big buyers enter the market. The systems that track carbon can begin to shape what kinds of projects succeed and which ones are left behind without any consideration. Trust becomes a currency, and the platforms that facilitate it become power brokers.

So today, we're going to explore how Carbonfuture is navigating this high stakes terrain, building tools for trust, while balancing the tension between innovation, inclusion and verification. You can learn more about Carbonfuture at carbonfuture.earth. Carbonfuture is all one word, no space, no dash. carbonfuture.earth.

We're going to get into the conversation right after this quick commercial break.

Welcome to the show, Hannes. How you doing today?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 3:06 I'm doing great. Actually, last call before the weekend starts in, like an hour or so, looking forward to a bicycle ride into the Black Forest close by.

Mitch Ratcliffe 3:16 Well, Freiburg is a beautiful place to take a bike ride. I thank you so much for taking the time on a Friday afternoon. CDR.fyi, sort of an authoritative source on this, describes Carbonfuture as the largest facilitator of durable carbon removal. So what does "largest" mean in terms of volume of carbon removed? And how's your revenue look after a few years in business?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 3:40 So largest actually means largest by volume. I think we are largest both by facilitated volume, which includes future volumes and actual delivered volumes. I haven't checked the recent numbers today, but we used to be the largest also by delivered volume. So it's actually a rank we are quite proud of.

And one of the background reasons is here that we focused from the beginning on delivering actual carbon removal credits and actual based on actual activities. One of the reasons why we started out with biochar carbon removal as a technology - not because we only want to do biochar, but we really wanted to provide our services for real activities. And yeah, that's the background.

On the revenue side, we don't disclose the exact numbers, but we have a, I would say, a healthy revenue trajectory as a VC funded startup, kind of a revenue growth that shows that we have a reason to exist.

Mitch Ratcliffe 4:53 Okay, so you've validated the business, validated the market. Now you position Carbonfuture... Uh, businesses, you know, by the way, audience folks, we're going to talk about MRV more than a few times. It means monitoring, reporting and verification. So your MRV platform is, you describe it as more than a compliance tool - that is infrastructure. What does that mean in practice, to the way that the company considers the investment in the technology? And I guess the other question is, who do you sell to? Is it the sustainability team, the finance team, the compliance team?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 5:27 I mean, this is a pretty broad question already, and then you can look at this from all the different angles. So MRV, monitoring, reporting, verification is a term that has emerged to be the thing that people reference to when they talk about data infrastructure on the supply side, so where data is being collected and consolidated and checked and provided to an independent verifier, auditor under a third party standard, typically.

And many of the companies out there have different focus points or emphasize the aspects of MRV a bit differently. Some are more on the upstream side, look at primary data from sensors or so. Some are more on the verification and closer to a standard or so. And we are kind of focusing on bridging the primary data from the facilities that comes from that might come from sensors, or from flow meters or or even from ERP systems into a standardized format that is sent to an auditor.

And from that perspective, we are maybe thought of best as a reporting layer on the activity side, on the supplier side, that kind of provides the data that is collected with the projects to a certifier and verifier, and also to a buyer. So that is the infrastructure piece that allows for a look through from whoever is entitled to get to see the data, for example, a credit holder to the upstream data on the whole life cycle of credit creation or carbon removal creation.

And maybe one last additional thing, what is a USP on our end, is that we cover data across multiple facilities and multiple entities on the supply side, because many of these technical, durable carbon removal solutions are different to a forest that is in one place and has one steward - covers an industrial value chain. So we collect data along value chains provided to stakeholders who need to see it.

Mitch Ratcliffe 8:02 So we are building a new infrastructure for sharing the information that allows us to understand our total carbon impact as a business. Our total carbon impact as a marketplace. I see where you're going. What's your business model then? Is it a SaaS service? Verification as a service? What? How do you describe it when you first have that conversation with somebody?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 8:22 Today the business is based on transaction fees or a cut on facilitated transactions to a buyer. And the reason for that is that the most important service we deliver to an early stage project, and most of the CDR projects out there are early stage, is proof points on the revenue side. So we help the projects to provide the levels of trust that are needed to a buyer to engage in a transaction, and then prove that also on an ongoing basis.

And so the primary service is to bring that trust to a buyer and facilitate that. And the MRV service I described before is something that is designed for a more mature market stage and to prove to also to buyers, but also to the wider stakeholder group like policymakers, how a robust carbon market should be designed. And for that specific service, you do not get that eye of a margin in this early stage market and also in the future. I don't think it's a high margin business, right? It's a really basic service that's necessary to carbon removal creation, to the issuance of credits, and that needs to be cost effective to provide for scale, for as broad as possible set of projects across the globe. Yeah.

Mitch Ratcliffe 10:00 So you first came to my attention when you work with the XPRIZE to validate the carbon removal prize winners, and you really added a layer of credibility to the program. And what you were just saying is really interesting in terms of thinking about that, how we create an umbrella of trust that allows people to look at a set of options for carbon drawdown and select from them with confidence.

You also mentioned that you might take a cut when you validate or facilitate a transaction in the carbon credits. So how do you avoid becoming both player and referee in the carbon ecosystem? Or is that exactly the point - to be the influencer that canonizes best practices?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 10:39 Yeah, I like the analogy of players and referees, and they are there is also an entity who makes the rules, right? So according to which the players are supposed to play and the referees are supposed to kind of oversee. I would say the referees are basically the auditors, and we are not auditors. We are probably more the crowd, the ground keepers in a stadium that makes sure that like, everything is like, provided properly. The players have a playing field that's in shape and no one gets hurt, and the audience can come and they pay their tickets and have a good experience and stuff.

We're really service provider. Of course, we are helping, as I would say, the referee to maybe we also provide, like the light that shines to every situation on the playing field, and

Mitch Ratcliffe 11:37 again, infrastructure you're talking about, this setting in which all of this can actually happen

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 11:42 exactly, exactly. We are not referees, and we see ourselves really as service providers for the players to improve their game and how they provide the services. And yeah, as you say, we collect a fee, of course. We are a commercial startup, and we deliberately decided to provide this infrastructure layer as a commercial startup, because we thought that is the best way to prove that it can sustain in economies and we don't need to wait for policy to evolve across the globe and say like, this is how it goes. And also policy needs examples to shape best.

Mitch Ratcliffe 12:27 And so this infrastructure is coming together, and sometimes we think too slowly, but having been through a few revolutions in technology, they take more time than we ever want them to. But there's this emerging pool of data and I and I'm curious about your thoughts as to whether or not the current ideas about data confidentiality and data ownership might be a blocker to really propagating the data that we need to better manage carbon as a society. Is that something that you're running into?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 12:58 Yeah, I would say yes, and it's an actually quite challenging question, and I wouldn't say I mean, data ownership is something I'm not sure if that term actually exists legally, I think it's the right to use data and the right to the right to

Mitch Ratcliffe 13:21 In the EU for sure, yes, you're right. Here in the States, we're very much a truly ownership oriented society. And I have seen many companies say, "Well, you know, we would love to share that information, but we can't. It's confidential or or it's so valuable that if we gave it away, it would dilute the value of our organization."

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 13:41 I mean, it's an issue. And when I mentioned before how we look at MRV and in industrial value chains, we are collecting data along commercial value chains, so between a producer and a trader that refines products, for example, bio carbons that come from agricultural residues, and then they are transformed into biochar and then made into a product and then sold to a user in the building sector, for example. So you can't disclose all that data, because otherwise the commercial interests of the actors are violated. So that is a reality.

But it's an - is it a blocker? I don't know. It's a blocker, maybe for a premature, voluntary carbon market, because people think it's think a bit of it as a charity, which it shouldn't be. It should be a real market. And so professional approaches to data management and data oversight, ownership, confidentiality is absolutely key, and that's one of the reasons why we invest so heavily in this software stack, which I said it before. We are today not paid for that service so much largely, but rather on the transaction side.

And of course, on the other hand side, a large buyer has good reasons and rights to ask for all that data that supports the credit creation in the first place, because they finance it. And so they want to know, is it real? Is it measured? Is our community, communities being heard? Is it de-risked, and will it sustain? So that is a - yeah. You hear it from the longer answer. It's something we are dealing with from many angles, and since day one, honestly, since we founded the company more than five years ago.

Mitch Ratcliffe 15:40 As we talked about, there's an infrastructure, digital infrastructure growing here, but a lot of the manual, natural carbon drawdown organizations don't have that infrastructure. They might be farmers, for the most part, following a few rules for applying biochar to their fields or enhanced rock weathering. How much confidence can a buyer have in that kind of programs reporting when they don't have a digital infrastructure? And should we be thinking about creating subsidized systems that they can plug into?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 16:13 I mean, especially on biochar community projects, there are a couple of players out there who provide and roll out such infrastructure, and also with enhanced rock weathering. There's a bit less on the community side, but rather organized by startups. You know them probably from XPRIZE participation, for example.

I think the challenges on these really distributed projects from a data - I mean, not only data integrity perspective, but really controlling. Is everything done right? Is like all each individual process being followed properly? Is a different set of challenges for digital infrastructure, for an MRV infrastructure, as opposed to our more back and financial markets heavy approach. And we are partnering here typically. And I do think there is a large role to play for these type of projects. And we are working closely with a couple of partners who are providing solutions. Plant Village is an example of a software platform that has

Mitch Ratcliffe 17:25 You mentioned de-risking. Are we at a stage in this industry where we do need, maybe philanthropic money along the lines of XPRIZE to catalyze some of that build out of this reporting infrastructure? Obviously, you have a lot of the pieces, but you need to make a profit in order to stay in business. Are we at that? Are we still at that sort of philanthropic kick start stage?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 17:46 It's difficult to say. I mean, the funding environment is tricky, right? So in 2020 21 interest rates were super low. Money was very, very cheap. And, I mean, it was probably even too many companies where were funded by VCs, and that is consolidating now.

And is it philanthropic money? I think yes, philanthropic money is super important. Think of enhanced rock weathering. A lot of research is being funded. There's a German organization Carbon Drawdown Initiative, which is a philanthropic organization that just funds research to speed up the research that universities would take longer, right? Because they need to get funding externally.

And on the tech infrastructure side. I mean, tech infrastructure is not as capital heavy. So I think while I would welcome philanthropic money, I think at least with solutions like ours, we still have a right to ask for VC money. And also we have now the Swiss Stock Exchange that invested in us from a strategic perspective, because they see our solution as a bridge into the established financial markets. So also that kind of investments are available to approaches like ours.

But philanthropic money plays its role and is needed to advance and accelerate the solutions, as long as the states haven't stepped in. I mean, to make a proper market, we need regulation. We need the buy side to be obliged to funnel money into the market also, in order to, in the end, justify the investments that are made now in the 20s into these earlier solutions.

So long answer, I would say yes, philanthropic money is needed, especially for the earlier stage solutions, open systems. Open system solutions come to mind like ocean based solutions, enhanced rock weathering and other solutions like biomass. I would rather say, I mean biochar, other biomass based removals, like BECCS and bio energy with carbon capture and storage, that is something I think also industrial players and various sectors have a great investment opportunity if they play it smart today, it's a

Mitch Ratcliffe 20:20 great place for us to take a quick break. I want to dig more into that question in just a moment. We'll be right back, folks.

Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. We're talking with Hannes Junginger-Gestrich. He is CEO of Carbonfuture, a carbon removal reporting and verification platform developer. As we were going to break you were talking about how a business has to balance a variety of things to succeed, especially in an early market like this. What's been the most difficult trade offs that you've had to make between economic imperatives and scientific rigor as you think about how to report and validate carbon removal?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 21:04 That's obviously a challenging question, and when I think of trade offs we made, luckily, we - at least as I can remember, and how I think of the decisions we had to make. We never had to trade off between rigor and validating or the auditors who do it, but allowing a not so good project on our platform for economic reasons or not. So we always lean to the scientific and rigorous side.

And the reason is that our success - I mean, the reason is that we believe that climate action has to be real and measurable and verified, but also from an economic perspective, our success is based on the unquestionable quality of the product we are providing. So as soon as we start allowing deteriorating quality, we start with a race to the bottom that finally doesn't end at zero. It creates a negative value because it hits your reputation and kicks you out of the market, and pushes buyers out of the market, and so on. So it kind of doesn't make sense for us, from a strategic perspective, to compromise for short term margin against and compromise and sacrifice scientific rigor.

Having said that, we still have to, and in the past, even probably more, did have to make choices whether we, for example, support a specific use case for which our solution is not yet ready, right? So we have to program specific stuff into our platform just for one project, because we have, we need it as a proof point and so in such things, so and that leads to the risk of a perceived inconsistency. And I think that that is the thing that confuses sometimes the public and the stakeholders. And here, we sometimes had to make choices that didn't look perfectly clean all the time, because sometimes we supported a type of projects that we didn't support before, or we discontinued to support and stuff like

Mitch Ratcliffe 23:38 The veracity of your scientific assessment is critical to all of our being able to understand collectively whether or not we're making progress towards carbon drawdown. Do you find that the conversation amongst your clientele has changed, that they're no longer simply trying to check a box on their sustainability and their commitments, but they're actually committed to moving toward a net zero environment?

And I guess the other way to ask the question is, are people moving past the idea that this is just a license to continue to emit without trying to draw down the embodied carbon in various things that we're making today, that we're actually really beginning to turn the corner towards thinking about overall reductions and drawdown which are necessary to reach net zero.

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 24:24 Unfortunately, I don't think that the global societies are, at this point, already to make a real change to actually fundamentally reduce the emissions, and that worries me a lot personally. When you ask about our clientele, I would say our clients always have to be, have been on the forefront of thinking about durable carbon removals, about actual drawdown, just because we are purely focused as a company on durable carbon removal.

So the other part of the potential client base was never accessible for us, so we basically are working almost exclusively with those types of buyers that are already advanced in their thinking. So what is on the bright side, I would say the client base has enlarged significantly, also beyond like Microsoft being really, by far the, the largest, and subject matter wise, the leading buyer. But there are other buyers who also have specific approaches and strategic thinking around carbon removal, which is has good and a not so good part to it, because it - the standardization of the product is needed to make it accessible to a really large group of buyers. But with that variety, we are making steps to, yeah, I would say commoditizing carbon removal as a product or as an asset.

That is one thing, and on the other hand side you, you mentioned using carbon removal as an excuse to continue to emit. I haven't seen that, really. On our buyer side. Of course, I have seen it in the media.

Mitch Ratcliffe 26:24 I'm sure that's good to hear. Yeah, talk a little about your relationship with Microsoft, because together, you're doing a lot definitional work that points to where I think most responsible companies are going to want to be in the future. But how did that relationship develop? And tell me a little about the most recent report where you really I think up the game in terms of what you require when describing a carbon removal projects impact.

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 26:52 Maybe the it is a bit on the history of our firm, and also on the history of how we work together with leading buyers like Microsoft, but also Swiss Re and some of the resellers. Honestly, are also amongst these players who want to really level up like how we think about carbon removal, what it means to remove carbon permanently from the atmosphere and what is necessary to create a credit or a claim.

And I think it has really been a journey that has been informed by ourselves, by some of the standards, by science and by leading buyers at which elements one should look right. In the beginning, we started our journey in 2019 funded the founded the company in 2020, yes, with also with funding this. And back then, it was, for example, totally unique that we required a documentation of the chain of custody and the collaboration amongst different players working together to create a carbon removal, right?

But if you think about it like in the biomass based space, for example, you source the biomass from somewhere, someone like someone provides residual biomass that needs proof about this. There are emissions happening upstream, then there is then there are processing steps that happen at a facility. Then there might be transport steps, then there might be even utilization versus storage questions to address. So we were very much out there to address chain of custody questions, for example. And even some of the leading buyers didn't have that in their in their due diligence thinking, in their procurement thinking.

So in these conversations, we kind of, we educated buyers, we educated standards. And on the other hand side, of course, buyers and standards had to educate us. I'm coming from the financial industry, for example, and my co founder as a software developer, also with a background in more regulated systems. But like we had to learn about - yes, SDGs matter in in carbon removal land, although it's not the measured thing, and it's, it's just a co benefit or so. And really, which kind of other elements to due diligence and to qualifying a project have to come in.

So it's really a joint learning curve and I think now we are at a stage where regulated systems, like, for example, in the EU, the CRCF, the Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming Framework, is being formulated and finalized based on all the work that we and others in the ecosystem have done so it's really building up a market, building up an asset class, the foundations of a new industry, hopefully.

Mitch Ratcliffe 30:12 So as you do that, I'm curious, are there emerging technologies or even natural carbon removal strategies that you're finding particularly intriguing and potentially transformative?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 30:26 You see, I'm hesitating. So there has been a quite a journey in how we think about this. You know, we started with biochar as a first technology. Then we, and my co founder and I, we are both mathematicians, so we always want to do generic stuff. So we all platform is designed to support all kinds of what I would say, durable solutions. And so we always thought like, what's next?

First one we tried to support was enhanced rock weathering, because there was also a bulk good, not biochar, but rock dust, this has been delivered and applied to a field. So we thought, okay, very similar, okay, how to measure that stuff? Very different, very difficult, open system, but still potentially economically, very competitive. So enhanced rock weathering, on the economics, on the scaling potential side, was always top of the list.

Right direct air capture, loved by industry, really supported by regulators, well funded, highly professional companies out there, probably on the energy consumption level, although I know there are a lot of great solutions out there, but there's still a fundamental question mark around this, which is kind of not addressed yet. So it's always like second and third place in our thinking.

Biomass based solutions are near term from our perspective, the ones that will deliver volume. And what excites me is also ocean based solutions. Which one I - I'm not a technical expert here, but what I why I am this really general thinking. I think there's so much potential there to tap into what nature does already right, and to kind of utilize that and accelerate carbon removal in that space, because it's, it's kind of, we have to be cost competitive in delivering these solutions. And if nature does something for free, like photosynthesis, and we can use it without destroying nature, then we should look into it.

That's why I'm generally looking at ocean based solutions in a broader space. But I can't, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be able to put a bet on a winner here. But there's, I mean, there's biomass, and there's alkalinity elements that's buried out capture I'm not so familiar with

Mitch Ratcliffe 33:18 Coming full circle, and as you think about this emerging infrastructure and all the variety in the industry that you just described in terms of the technology and the natural solutions that are being applied to this, how do you see the carbon removal industry developing over the next decade or so? Are we headed towards greater consolidation, more fragmentation, as there's more innovation and more solutions coming from the edges, a tiered ecosystem of standards? Where are we going?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 33:47 So maybe linking it to the previous question, if you I generally think we are. We are in a transition phase from a voluntary to all the way through a pre compliance market, which is probably in some areas already existing, if I think, for example, for about the aviation industry and the and then regulated markets with some coexistence here and there. Of course, nature has its role. But I'm looking more on the durable carbon removal side.

And I think that biomass based solutions, from a supply perspective, will dominate the field for a couple of years. One of the reasons next to maturity and availability is they are okay-ish in terms of measurability. So we with our, for example, with our MRV system, we can pretty much really tell you exactly where which ton of carbon is. So I'm really confident we sell what we so we know what we sell, and we can link that precisely on the open systems, enhanced rock weathering, ocean based solutions.

I think they might be, I mean, always super curious and super excited to learn about new MRV approaches and innovation there, and data based approaches which, which are amazing. But when you think about generally in an open system, there might be, they might be rather fit for state regulated frameworks where, like, for example, in the EU, you have specific agricultural practices that receive subsidies just because landscape should be protected or so, like activity based subsidies or activity based funding, which I don't see so much in the voluntary carbon removal space. So I think on the durable removal side, biomass based solutions will lead the pack.

And what you asked on the ecosystem more broadly, I guess we are in a phase of consolidation, partly driven by funding environment.

Mitch Ratcliffe 36:00 Really, I see it is diversifying rather than consolidating. Why do you? Can you give me an example?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 36:08 Okay, maybe, maybe it depends. We have to be specific where we look at, for example, marketplaces, infrastructure providers, standards, so and so. There's still, you're right, there's still a diversification. But service providers, I would say, venture capital funded service providers, they have a hard time to find money. So consolidation is there.

But you are right on the on standards, on solutions, on innovations. We still have a we still have a kind of a growth and opening the funnel in a way, and how I see it in the future, when we come closer to regulation, and not sure how it goes, but our hypothesis and our architecture is open architecture. So we want to be servicing an ecosystem rather than a fully vertically integrated like project developer, with all the data in house, also on the market side, like own everything - that's not our approach.

And why is that? I think maybe it's because of we are socialized this way, like to think in ecosystems when it comes to economic value creation, but I think I also want to cooperate. So I think we can create network effects. We can do what we do best and and coming back to the economics, driving down the cost of removal, removal, data provision and removal issuance is essential because the the fundamental value of the actual physical removal that has to be funded, and the services around are facilitator for that. And it shouldn't be like, can't be a huge margin business, right? So that's why I think we should optimize here.

Mitch Ratcliffe 38:06 So based on everything you know about the industry, and you explained a great deal of it as we've been talking, how far along the way, or will you be in terms of drawdown by 2040? Are we going to be? And I won't ask you to say the number of gigatons, but do you think we will be 20% of the way toward the environmental goals we have as a society? 50%? 2%? Where are we? Where are we headed?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 38:36 So I said it before, honestly, when I look at what's happening globally, at the moment, I am concerned that the emission reductions are delayed too much, so that is my major concern on the removal side. Yes, we have to build up an industry, and it will be absolutely decisive how fast we are. But the I mean, the climate crisis, severeness of the climate crisis is mostly driven by by how fast we change our burning fossil carbon behavior.

And here I am concerned less so on the I mean, when you look at the European developments on the renewable energies, they have picked up. They have won their economic race. There can be as many interest groups as they want to be. Renewables are the cheapest source of energy. They will make it. That's it, right? But I'm concerned on the emission reductions anyway.

And on the removal side, I am an optimist, so I think we will be on the path to the gigatons by 2040 for sure.

Mitch Ratcliffe 39:54 I share your concerns, but I'm also encouraged to hear that final conclusion. Hannes, thanks so much for your time today. How can folks keep up on what Carbonfuture is doing?

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 40:04 I mean, our website is rich, full of information and also up to date stuff like blog post and interesting stuff about recent developments. carbonfuture.earth or carbonfuture.com we are pretty much active on LinkedIn, and you can also follow me personally on LinkedIn.

Mitch Ratcliffe 40:25 Well, thanks very much. Have a great weekend.

Hannes Junginger-Gestrich 40:29 Wonderful Thanks, Mitch. I will. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Mitch Ratcliffe 40:39 Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. You've been listening to a conversation with Hannes Junginger-Gestrich, and He is CEO of the carbon removal monitoring, reporting and verification company, Carbonfuture. You can learn more about Carbonfuture, which has a really interesting website at carbonfuture.earth. Carbonfuture is all one word, no space, no dash. And that's not .com - that's .earth. carbonfuture.earth. Hope you wrote that down.

While it's disappointing to hear that few companies have moved toward the notion that reducing CO2 emissions is their first best option to prevent atmospheric warming, it's encouraging that carbon removal, particularly natural solutions, are getting traction with a growing infrastructure for tracking carbon throughout its products life cycle to its verified measured removal and storage. We can begin to envision a future when having reduced emissions, the drawdown of anthropogenic carbon dioxide can offer hope of reversing climate change.

Certainly, there are roadblocks, including a concerted effort by the fossil fuel industry and its legions of lobbyists and elected officials in their pockets in Washington. But the rest of the world is moving forward, and maybe we'll catch up one of these days, hopefully in time to take full advantage of the economic opportunity that the green economy represents.

Hannes made an important point that we have to think in terms of ecosystems, when looking to create economic value, simply storing CO2, say on the ground or the ocean, using methods that may carry other negative impacts will not result in a net gain for nature or for us humans.

MRV technology and services are beginning to let us see into the actual outcomes of this emerging movement to remove CO2 from the environment. Although the progress isn't as fast as we want, it is progress. You know, it's useful to remember that just a decade or so ago, the European Union generated less than 5% of its energy from renewables, and now renewables account for 47% of the energy generated in 2024. In the United States, more than 95% of new energy coming online in 2025 is from wind and solar, and the carbon removal, measurement, reporting and verification industry feels a lot like renewables did 10 years ago. So I think we can take heart.

Look, we're a slow animal when it comes to big changes, but we can get there. In the meantime, each of us needs to send a message to companies, to legislators and our neighbors, let's make a circular economy and carbon a reality. It can unleash immense economic value while restoring the ecosystems we depend upon.

And speaking of a reason to stay tuned next week, I'll be talking with the legendary environmental writer Bill McKibben about his new book, Here Comes the Sun, which describes what else - the low or no carbon economy that can blossom on the shoulders of renewable energy. It's going to be a fascinating conversation. So come on back next week, and I hope you'll take a moment to look at this or many other episodes of Sustainability in Your Ear and share them with your friends or your family. We've got more than 500 shows to choose from, and writing review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us.

Folks, you're the amplifiers that can spread more ideas so we create less waste. Please tell your friends, your family, your coworkers, the people you meet on the street, that they can find Sustainability in Your Ear on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness you prefer. Thank you for your support. I'm Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability in Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself. Take care of one another, and let's all take care of this beautiful planet. Have a green day!