Now that SBTi is revising its net-zero standard, it is a good time to reflect on the innate character of permanent removals. Maybe removals for neutralizing unabated emissions, applying a like-for-like approach, is not beyond your value-chain? Perhaps they are core to your business and, hence, part of your value-chain. If so, permanent removals should be thought of as part of the Scopes.

I am not saying they should necessarily be a Scope. They are sui generis, neither a point source with a negative sign, nor a classical offset. Fundamentally, removals is your license to operate. Today, for climate ambitious corporations. Tomorrow, by law. In between, as a necessity to ensure that volumes are eventually available for you to counterbalance all your residual emissions and reach net-zero.

Removals is a service you need to acquire to continue to operate your business, like any other mission-critical service. They are not compensation measures, but part of core business and business continuity. In a way, the requirement for permanent removals at net-zero would seem to actually imply that.

Could it be that, relatively high-cost, permanent removals need not to be a deterrence for reductions? What if it is the opposite? If a certain percentage of unabated emissions must be matched with permanent removals, corporations would get a true and strong incentive to bring the total volume of emissions down. This could even trigger new innovative approaches to bringing Scope 3 emissions down.

Such a requirement should, of course, be discussed in the context of what responsibility net-zero committed companies have for ensuring that the permanent CDR industry develops and can deliver significant volumes at attractive price points. If they are not responsible for getting the net into their climate objectives, who should be?

But it would be a mistake to approach this question only with a stick. Corporate engagement is better triggered with a carrot. Now that we have the permanent removals as part of the Scopes, how could we device a carrot? While net-zero corporations care a lot about the climate, they care even more about their customers. And here is the key.

Let corporations that acquire permanent carbon removal units pass on the outcome of such certificates to their customers’ up-stream Scope 3 emissions. All of a sudden, corporations assessing to acquire removals would not only have the driver of climate mitigation, but also the driver of making their offering to their customers more competitive. Now, Chief Sustainability Officers’ and CFOs’ incentives would start to align. Climate action would result.

This would not allow or be the same as achieving your Scope 3 targets by buying Environmental Attribute Certificates. However, your acquisition of removal units to neutralize part of your emissions would also be valid for your (down-stream) customers’ up-stream Scope 3 emissions, which would consequently be reduced.

Climate integrity would be maintained. But would this deter reductions? As implied above due to the cost-level, such deterrence is unlikely. Different safeguards could nevertheless be imagined, if that would be required to quickly reach consensus on a meaningful introduction of permanent removals. An industry needs to be built and the climate is waiting for us to take action.