HOUSTON (PRNewswire) — Vaulted Deep (“Vaulted”), a biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) carbon dioxide removal (CDR) company, announced delivery of 1,666 tonnes of CDR to Frontier, a leading group of carbon removal buyers. This pre-purchase, made last fall, is part of Frontier’s $1 billion advanced market commitment to buy high quality permanent CDR. Vaulted’s delivery is among the fastest deployed permanent CDR and marks a milestone for the company which has removed—and durably stored—over 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in its first months since beginning operations. Vaulted’s carbon removal credits are issued by CDR registry, Isometric, which is setting a new bar for quality in the carbon credit market with radical transparency and a scientifically rigorous standard. This follows Isometric’s recent approval as a qualified organization for verifying and issuing credits to Frontier buyers.
Vaulted Deep intercepts a wide range of sludgy, carbon-rich, organic wastes – biosolids, agricultural and livestock waste and paper mill sludge – permanently locking them underground before the carbon can be re-released into the atmosphere. In addition to the Frontier delivery, Vaulted has also delivered CDR to Rubicon Carbon.
Vaulted Deep launched with two permitted operational injection sites in Los Angeles County and Hutchinson, Kansas, making rapid, permanent CDR deployment possible. By processing a range of often pathogenic and contaminated organic wastes, Vaulted’s CDR provides substantial co-benefits that include eliminating methane emissions (which Vaulted does not include in its credit accounting), reducing water-borne illnesses and preventing pollution that disproportionately harms marginalized communities. The United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change declared that preventing the worst impacts of climate change will require at least five gigatonnes of permanent carbon removal annually by 2050. Vaulted estimates it will deliver 30,000 tonnes of permanent CDR in the coming year.
“Within six months, Vaulted successfully delivered 100% of the tonnes pre-purchased by Frontier buyers, showing that rigorous verification and responsible deployment are possible while moving quickly,” said Joanna Klitzke, Procurement & Ecosystem Lead at Frontier.
Last Fall, Frontier facilitated the purchase of these tonnes from Vaulted. The credits for these 1,666 tonnes were issued to Frontier members Stripe and Shopify and can be viewed on the Isometric Registry, which launches today. The Registry sets a new standard for transparency in CDR, providing a permanent audit trail for all credits issued by Isometric, and making all the underlying information behind every credit public so the data can be reviewed and scrutinized.
“As the CDR market evolves, technologies that can provide high-quality permanent CDR while scaling up quickly and responsibly will play an essential role in moving our entire industry forward and meeting global climate needs,” said Julia Reichelstein, Vaulted CEO. “We’re proud to deliver tonnes that reach the quality bar that Isometric’s scientific standard sets, demanding transparency of all data, scientific rigor and open reporting.”
Across the market, there has been a flight to quality as buyers increasingly value real, measurable carbon credits. Isometric issued these credits as the first batch under their Standard and Biomass Geological Storage protocol. Isometric protocols require three core criteria that make their credits the highest quality in the voluntary carbon market:
- Scientific rigor that guarantees climate impact. Isometric credits are certified to the Isometric Standard, which ensures that one credit always equals one tonne of carbon dioxide, durably removed from the atmosphere for at least 1,000 years. This standard was developed by over a dozen Isometric climate scientists and peer reviewed by the independent Isometric Science Network, made up of more than 200 carbon removal experts.
- Independently certified and transparent. Isometric credits have a publicly available life cycle assessment that accounts for every step of the carbon removal process—down to each truckload of material transported. This underlying detail is audited by independent experts and the results of this measurement, reporting and verification are published online in a permanent record.
- Aligned incentives. Previously, registries were paid by suppliers per credit issued, creating an incentive to over credit poor quality projects. This led to a breakdown of trust in carbon markets. The measurement, reporting and verification (and, ultimately, issuance) for all Isometric credits is paid for by the buyer of those credits on a flat-fee basis, eliminating the conflict of interest and ensuring issuance of high-quality credits.
Isometric has since published protocols in four additional CDR technologies: bio-oil, enhanced rock weathering, direct air capture and ocean alkalinity enhancement, and will soon launch credits supplied from these processes.
Eamon Jubbawy, Isometric founder, and CEO said: “Carbon markets require trust to operate effectively and that’s exactly what Isometric credits deliver. We’ve created a new type of carbon credit, grounded in scientific rigor. This marks a new era for this industry, where buyers can purchase with confidence. This is a critical step towards defining quality in carbon markets which will help carbon removal scale to the level that the planet needs.”
